folkisms

Noun

folkism (countable and uncountable, plural folkisms)

1. (uncountable) An ideology that emphasizes racial or ethnic identity, especially when combined with nationalism.
   • For example, I hear a "forward" reference to the quartets of Bartok and Shostakovitch (and perhaps more generally to a kind of imprecise "Central European nationalism/folkism”) in the bare and unharmonized motif in the viola and cello, imitated by the first and second violins, at bars 92–94 of the...2005, Eric Clarke, Ways of Listening, page 172
   1. An ideology, articulated by historian Simon Dubnow, that declared Jewish people to be a diaspora nation without a territory.
      • Folkism viewed itself as a present-oriented phenomenon called into existence not by individuals or ideals, but by the exigencies of daily life in the Diaspora.2011, Kalman Weiser, Keith Ian Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation, page 153
   2. Völkisch nationalism; the desire for a homogeneous population that excludes foreigners and the belief that different racial or ethnic groups have different rights.
      • For folkism, human value and human rights were associated with cultural identity just as they are for contemporary postmodernism.1999, Timothy J. Demy, Gary P. Stewart, Genetic Engineering: A Christian Response, page 134
   3. A Japanese ideology that emphasized a common identify among East Asian peoples, associated with the fascist movement during the WWII era.
      • But folkism, he urged, should not be understood as imperial expansion but rather as the necessity of the group to transcend "certain limits." "The formation of Manchukuo," he wrote, "had nothing to do with capitalism but resulted from the [needs] of Japanese folkism."1988, Harry D. Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen
   4. A movement within the Heathen or neo-pagan community that states one cannot convert to Heathenry unless one has the appropriate ancestry.
      • Further, the 'slope' from mild 'folkism' to more major nationalism, including the use of symbols associated with the far right and the appropriation and use of heathen or Asatru symbolism by such groups, is documented for the USA by Gardell (2003); we have commenced some discussion of such...2006, Ian Russell, Images, Representations and Heritage, page 100
2. (uncountable) Synonym of populism.
   • These movements were intensely nationalist, highly moral and, although middle class, discovered folkism 'as a reaction against bourgeois society' (Joll, 1983: 154).1999, Christopher Warhurst, Between Market, State, and Kibbutz, page 59

   Synonyms:

   populism

See all 10 meanings of folkism