This session consists of 5 presentations and a joint Q&A with the presenters. The session contains:
➺ Shadreck Bayane, Ogone Phidelia Phetlhu - On the Spotlight: Inside SABC’s Radio Bantu Preservation Pursuits, Any Breakthroughs? (Short presentation)
➺ Dagmar Brunow - Lost in Collaboration? Countering the risks around queer archival ethics of care (Short presentation)
➺ Gisa Jähnichen - The first Audiovisual Archive of Laos: A Case of Lacking Access to Gathered Knowledge (Long presentation)
➺ Juanma Ferrando-Cuña - The Limits of Representativeness: the 'Manuel Palau' Sound Archive of Traditional Valencian Music (Short presentation)
**Abstracts:**
➺ On the Spotlight: Inside SABC’s Radio Bantu Preservation Pursuits, Any Breakthroughs?
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Shadreck Bayane, Ogone Phidelia Phetlhu (Poster)
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Critical to the life of any radio station is the capacity of its’ sound archive to build up and maintain collections as a permanent source of material for use in programmes. Focusing on Radio Bantu, it was launched in the 1960s by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) as a fully-fledged station for African listeners in their different languages and started streaming online recently in July 2023. Despite the station’s rich historic heritage and huge listenership, very little of Radio Bantu sound content has been preserved so much so that concerted efforts are ongoing to get the collection back to SABC. Regional Archivists are trying to source and search for this material to augment the collections. What progress has been made so far, anything to show? What are the challenges, and prospects? This study investigates. It explores possible ways of putting in place a practical and comprehensive program of strategies geared towards facilitating and accelerating the process of identifying, selecting, acquiring, appraising, cataloguing, and preserving more recorded content for the Station. Based on personal observations, surveys and literature review, the assessment takes a look at the formation and evolution of recorded sound collections at SABC – with the findings highlighting gaps and omissions thereof – and proposes a lasting solution going forward which includes consideration and adaptation to technology.
Keywords: South African Broadcasting Corporation; SABC; Bantu Radio; Recorded sound collections; Technology
➺ Lost in Collaboration? Countering the risks around queer archival ethics of care
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Dagmar Brunow (Short presentation)
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What happens when LGBTQIA+ grassroot, minor, or community archives decide to collaborate with national audiovisual archives? In an attempt to safeguard LGBTQIA+ collections in a sustainable manner, to preserve analogue films, or to reach out to wider audiences via online platforms, minor archives are nonetheless facing risks around collaborations, in terms of archival ethics of care (Brunow 2024) and around the ambivalence of visibility. Examples would be the ‘un-unboxing’ and ‘unqueering’ of collections with regards to catalogue terms and metadata, and of “naming, shaming, framing” (Brunow 2018). One of the primary risks of these collaborations lies in the potential erasure of the specific (sub)cultural and historical contexts of LGBTQIA+ materials. National audiovisual archives may prioritize standard cataloging terms and metadata that do not adequately reflect the identities and experiences represented in queer collections. This can result in the loss of nuance and the flattening of diverse narratives within the LGBTQIA+ community. Presenting results from my current research project “The Lost Heritage: Improving Collaborations between Digital Film Archives (Swedish Research Council, 2021-2024), this paper points at the risks around such collaborations and discusses how they might be overcome.
➺ The first Audiovisual Archive of Laos: A Case of Lacking Access to Gathered Knowledge
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Gisa Jähnichen (Long presentation)
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The Audiovisual Archive established at the National Library of Laos is the first of its kind in that small land-locked Southeast Asian country. Since the inauguration of the National Library Media Section in 2001, many people made use of it as a source of knowledge gathered through sound and visuals, additional materials, and the personal experiences of the recordists. Now, the time comes that recordists retire, don’t re-visit the places of recordings, and don’t remember their experiences. How can the National Library deal with this problem?
In a small country like Laos, the problem is still small as expected. This short presentation will analyse the previous users, the knowledge buried under all examples of recordings and records. It will analyse the absent urges and necessities in order to be a decent member of their society. In the process of analysis, the real lack of access will play a predominant role. Current habits of modern field researchers from various institutions may also be of interest. Another point of worries is the amount and quality of questions arising from contemporary researchers who want to know more about the past. Any future digitisation or archival work must possibly include the way of obtaining all kinds of knowledge and personal experiences. The research is new to the body of knowledge, and it is focussing on previously non-published work.
➺ The Limits of Representativeness: the 'Manuel Palau' Sound Archive of Traditional Valencian Music
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Juanma Ferrando-Cuña (Short presentation)
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In recent years, ethnomusicology has shown remarkable interest in the new possibilities for study posed by field recordings, considering them not only as techniques for reproducing a sonic past, but also as production tools capable of generating new ways of constructing acoustic memory in listeners. This invites, among other issues, addressing the various uses, beyond purely scientific ones, that are currently given to this type of documentation. But also, to review under what conditions and according to what criteria the process of elaboration of the sound files was carried out.
This communication focuses on the study of the 'Manuel Palau' sound archive of traditional Valencian music, compiled in the 1950s. First, it will determine the criteria followed by researchers to determine which music they recorded, and the method followed in the recording process. Second, it will reflect on the role played by these recordings as representative sonic documents of a community's sonic reality or as reflections of an idealized past, and how they are used as validation, authentication, and (re)construction documents of new and old sonorities from various music revival movements.
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