In addition to our online journal, BorderLore, Southwest Folklife Alliance produces a range of print and digital publications that document folklife, share research, and make cultural knowledge accessible to broad audiences.
End of Life: Continuum
From 2014 to 2023, SFA’s End of Life: Continuum program documented and curated public programming around the traditions, expressions, and practices that surround death, grief, and mourning across Southern Arizona’s diverse communities. Drawing on folk, ethnic, faith-based, occupational, and alternative traditions, the program created space for conversations that are too often absent from public life.
In 2014-15, a cohort of citizen folklorists conducted research on expressive end-of-life practices within multicultural communities in Tucson as part of SFA’s Continuum Program. Some of their findings are gathered within four downloadable booklets.
Taste & Remembrance
Stories and information about the role of food traditions in ritual aspects of mourning and death.
Remedies, Ritual, & Wisdom
Stories and information about the role of plants, folk remedies, science, and elder wisdom in ritual aspects of mourning and death.
Shrines, Markers, & Adornment in End of Life
Stories and information about the role of adornment and decoration in ritual aspects of mourning and death
Finality: Formal Faith & Beyond
Stories and information about both formal religious and alternative ways we seek comfort in end of life.
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End of Life Programs
The End of Life: Continuum (EOL) projects share cultural knowledge about traditions, expressions, and practices associated with end of life, grief, mourning and death in Southern Arizona’s folk, ethnic, occupational, faith-based and alternative communities.
Food & Foodways
How people produce, prepare and eat food is a significant way to understand a culture. Foodways provide insight into how people adapt to their environment, preserve their heritage and build community.
Taste Bud Memories
This project explored refugees’ experiences with food and food security (May 2018) in collaboration with Iskashitaa Refugee Network.
La Doce Barrio Foodways Project
La Doce Barrio Foodways Project was yearlong project along the food corridor of Tucson’s South 12th Ave—known as “La Doce.” It revealed the importance of local knowledge and food heritage to community cohesion and health and the potential for future community-based economic development and local governance.
use the controls below the book to expand to full-page, share or download the report
Video | Ways of resilience series, June 2020
During the pandemic, BorderLore went live to discuss “ways of resilience” with tradition bearers in Southern Arizona.
More virtual content was also created for Tucson Meet Yourself in 2020. Playlists available on YouTube.
Explore Deeper
Learn about the programs behind the documentation and find additional publications.
Past Cultural Organizing Program / Past Education & Assessment Program / Publications