A groundbreaking critical introduction to folk music and song focused on questions of identity, community, representation, politics, and popular culture. Written by a distinguished international team of authors, this Companion is an indispensable resource for rethinking the confluence of sound, heritage, and identity in the twenty-first century. A unique addition to the literature, it highlights the fundamentally hybrid and (post)colonial dynamics that have shaped people's cultures around the globe, from the Appalachian mountains to the Indian subcontinent. It provides students with new critical paradigms essential for understanding how and why certain musical traditions have been characterised as 'folk'-and what continues to inspire folkloric imaginaries today. The twenty specially commissioned chapters explore folk music from a variety of perspectives including ethnography, revivalism, migration, race, class, gender, protest, and the public sphere. Among these chapters are four 'Artist Voices' by world-renowned performers Peggy Seeger, Angeline Morrison, Jon Boden, and Yale Strom.