Taking Xhosa Music out of the Fridge and into the Townships

Abstract

This article considers the value of sound elicitation, taking ethnomusicological sound recordings out of archives and connecting them with the people whose music they capture. Discussing a case study that explored practical uses for a major collection of African field recordings*Hugh Tracey's Sound of Africa series*I argue for innovative ways to curate and circulate recordings amongst the source communities, who often have no meaningful access to academic archives. I consider how collaborative engagement of local social mechanisms can help re-insert recordings into people's daily lives.

:Music and Digital Media: A Planetary Anthropology

“…Aligned with developments in museum studies, this move grows out of questions, on the one hand, of social transformations accompanying globalisation (e.g., widespread migration, rising identity politics) and, on the other hand, of ideologies and technologies that challenge archival imaginations. A significant segment of such work focuses on research archives and collections, examining their relevance in animating cultural memories by initiating locally relevant activities (e.g., Brinkhurst 2012;Hilder 2012;Lobley 2012;Nannyonga-Tamusuza and Weintraub 2012;Vallier 2010). Such scholarship offers valuable insights into how technological transformations may facilitate relationships between music archives and communities of practice and reception.…”

¿Qué es un registro sonoro? Sobre las ilusiones y certezas de la etnomusicología

“…Una de esas formaciones discursivas se constituyó en torno a la crítica a la llamada armchair ethnomusicology llevada a cabo principalmente por Alan Merriam (1964), la cual asoció los registros a un discurso antropológico con fuerte reivindicación del positivismo y el funcionalismo. Otro ejemplo se encuentra en el marco de la llamada "etnomusicología aplicada"; perspectiva cuya sensibilidad social y, en algunos casos, anhelo por cuestionar la verticalidad entre investigador/ra e investigado/a, asocia los registros y archivos sonoros a enunciados que reivindican posiciones ecológicas, diálogos y prácticas desjerarquizadas y estrategias proactivas en la generación y los usos del conocimiento (Araújo 2008, Araújo and Members of the Grupo Musicultura 2006, Brinkhurst 2012, Grupo Musicultura 2011, Johnson 2012, Landau 2012, Landau y Topp Fargion 2012, Lobley 2012. 8 [E]stas grabaciones […] fueron tomadas en circunstancias extremadamente adversas y con una pequeña máquina Edison Standard.…”