Introduction

Abstract

The introduction presents acoustic recordings from the Lautarchiv (sound archive) in Berlin as acoustic fragments of a polyphonic historical sound track of colonial knowledge production, which were sequestered in an archive for a century. These objectified recorded moments of speech are introduced as components of larger repertoires, which in some cases turn out to be splinters of the fabric of a discursive field transmitted in form of songs and stories. Although they have been isolated from a flock of interconnected utterances and ossified in the archive, these fragments may still complicate our understanding of voice. Close listening and translation allow readers to listen in on moments of knowledge production in German POW and civilian camps. In Fragment II, Jámafáda from Burkina Faso speaks in Mòoré of his experience of being conscripted into the French army and of losing his brothers on the way to Europe.