Incidentally, from what I understand of your work it sounds as though you've done the tradition and music history a real service. In purely academic terms - if they matter a jot to folk in any sense of the word - the work presented as a PhD would require a tentative set of conclusions, or an examination of all possible conclusions to what the music may 'be'.
The arguments on this board generally emerge because posters flit between anecdotal, academic and informal definitions of words with people claiming one context is more in keeping with 'folk' than the next. To make the point the generality of posts on this board, a specialist folk board at that, are completely unconcerned with definitions and include questions about country, acoustic, blues without anyone taking offence.