RomArchive—Digital Archive of the Roma. Directed by Franziska Sauerbrey and Isabell Raade. Music section curated by Petra Gelbert, Carol Silverman, and Siv B. Lie. In English, German, and Romani. URL: www.romarchive.eu.

Abstract

Many music scholars and cultural activists are forging ideas on how to transgress the walls of universities and academia and make both music and research on music accessible to broader audiences. Despite great efforts in applied and engaged ethnomusicology and a nearly paradigmatic positioning of participatory and dialogical forms of research (see Hemetek, Kölbl, and Saglam 2019), ethnomusicology at large has yet to overcome the systemic hegemonies between the ones doing research and the ones being researched (see Sardo 2018). This unequal power relationship holds true especially for minorities, who often are structurally excluded from academic spheres and scholarly knowledge production. RomArchive-Digital Archive of the Roma aims to counter these hegemonies that we so often find in academia, specifically the hegemonies surrounding the creation and maintenance of archives. Institutional archives that are invested in national, imperial, and colonial legacies generally fail to represent, let alone include, cultural expressions of ethnic minorities (see also Western 2019). Targeting academic audiences, institutional archives do not provide easy access to minority members. Further, their few representations of minorities often draw on non-minority positionalities based on historic ethnographies that draw on emic concepts, meanings, and values. In its promotion of self-representation and accessibility, RomArchive presents an alternative: an archive produced by minority members for minority members, as well as all others. Its maxim, as articulated by one of its founders, is "nothing about us without us" (Raabe 2020:88). The ten topical sections of the website comprise around 5,000 audiovisual files, photographs, recorded art works, and articles by over 150 participants from 15 countries. This archive, magazine, and portal seeks to focus on all art forms and cultural expressions of Roma around the world. The objectives of the site are ambitious. When one enters the online space, sharp headers appear on the neatly structured site: "Creating visibility," "Reclaiming culture," "Decolonizing knowledge," and "Deconstructing identities." These slogans represent the website's approach to showcasing the cultural expressions of the Roma-cultural expressions that have a history of stereotypical representation and exoticisation, positioning the Roma as "Other" from a Eurocentric perspective through music. Central in facilitating visibility and accessibility is the archive's (non-)locality: the Internet allows for low-threshold access-the website is designed for desktop and mobile devices, which adds to its accessibility, with the smartphone interface being of particular relevance in reaching the target communities. Another crucial feature is RomArchive's language policy: next to German and English, the entire content is available in Romani. Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation with a grant of €3.75 million, this large-scale project is one of the biggest public foundations of its kind. Sixteen curators, almost all with ...