IASA's 55th Annual Conference

This session consists of 4 presentations and a joint Q&A with the presenters. The session contains:

➺ Rui Vilela - Rádio Libertação: anticolonial broadcastings and archival resonances (Long presentation)

➺ Veronica Boggio - Mapping the Amazon Archives: The Management of an Independent Collection in Peru. (Short presentation)

➺ Lee Watkins - Beyond the digital return: The production of digitized heritages at the International Library of African Music, Rhodes University, South Africa (Long presentation)


**Abstracts:**


➺ Rádio Libertação: anticolonial broadcastings and archival resonances
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Rui Vilela (Long presentation)
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Guerrilla broadcasting during the liberation movements contributed to the construction of ethereal geographies by uniting networks of people and broadcasting stations that amplified their voices. In Guinea-Bissau, the PAIGC quickly recognised the advantages of radio broadcasting in mobilising African populations and demoralising European troops. Rádio Libertação became an instrumental tool in the party’s arsenal, broadcasting from Guinea-Conakry from 1964 onwards, thus accentuating the sonic contours of the anticolonial insurgency against Portuguese colonial rule. Over the next decade, radio programmes covered a wide range of content, including updates on the military situation, political contestation, and psychological warfare. Such programmes juxtaposed unequivocal condemnation of colonial racism and crimes against humanity with narratives of national pride, state-building, and aspirations for peace and democracy. In recent years, I undertook the digitisation of reel-to-reel tapes from the sound archive of Rádio Libertação, and could access broadcastings and other recordings spanning the latter half of the Liberation Movement (1969-1974). The recordings reveal a political-ideological alignment across a spectrum of sonic events, ranging from news reports to musical productions, highlighting the construction of an anticolonial soundscape. The archival records unveil a lexicon indicating a progression of vocabulary from anticolonial critique towards decoloniality. Anticolonial sound archives function as repositories containing speeches, broadcasts, music, oral histories, and various audio recordings, offering documentation of the struggles, and resilience experienced by communities affected by colonialism and imperialism. By foregrounding the experiences and knowledge encapsulated by archival voices, the anticolonial sound archive emerges as a resource supplementing the colonial archive's omissions.

➺ Mapping the Amazon Archives: The Management of an Independent Collection in Peru.
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Veronica Boggio (Short presentation)
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A notable gap exists in institutions dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Peruvian cinematic heritage. This deficiency is emblematic of a broader trend within the Latin American landscape, where cultural policies lag behind in fostering the creation and upkeep of national film archives. The presentation will show the process of the project "The Lost Filmography", which is based on the implementation of different film preservation processes of two archives: that of the Biblioteca Amazonica (Iquitos) of the Agustinos Fathers and that of the Selvas Amazonicas (Madrid) of the Dominican fathers in the Amazon jungle of Peru. This is the starting point for the management of a collection dedicated to Amazonian cinema in coordination with the archive of the Filmoteca PUCP of Peru. The project has been propelled forward through independent management, in partnership with various stakeholders. This progress is made possible by strategic coordination between the Riva-Agüero Institute, the Filmoteca PUCP, the Elías Querejeta Zine Escola of the Basque Country, the Biblioteca Amazónica of Iquitos and Selvas Amazónicas from Madrid. The objective is to create a web page as a result that will aim to highlight these films and their history. Our overarching objective is to develop a dedicated website as the project's outcome, aimed at spotlighting these films and their historical significance. Consequently, it will be complemented by a series of promotional and educational initiatives designed to introduce audiences to the platform.

➺ Beyond the digital return: The production of digitized heritages at the International Library of African Music, Rhodes University, South Africa
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Lee Watkins (Long presentation)
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The International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University in South Africa has been engaged in digital return projects since around 2014. With the assistance of my predecessor, Diane Thram, and students conducting research for their graduate degrees, the return of these recordings helped to transform the very nature of a music archive which had its origins during colonial times.


The return of these recordings helped to shape new relationships with communities who previously had little to no knowledge about these collections. But, the return of these recordings carried the risk of being sentimental rather than a generator of new knowledge. What happened to these recordings once they were returned? In this paper, I describe a “Beyond the digital return” project in Grahamstown, South Africa. Since 2023, ILAM has been involved with the Egazini Arts Centre in Joza township in a project which looks at what happens after the return of the recordings and at how the music archive can serve the interests of the surrounding community.


The recordings were made by Hugh Tracey in Grahamstown in the 1950s. This paper describes the processes of returning the recordings, and the thoughts and approaches coming from participants in the project. How does this very young generation of artists relate to the recorded sounds? How, in turn do they view the music archive which for much of its existence has not been available to them and the generations before them? I furthermore describe the goals, methods, and outcomes of this project to illustrate how the imagination and strategic planning can mitigate the effects of a colonial repository such as ILAM to tr