Sampling as ethnographic method/remixing Gulu City

Bibliographic Data

ID2260022
AuthorsJoella Bitter (0009-0004-4545-3035, Department of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill USA, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume125
Issue1
Pages23-35
Publication date2023-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Anthropologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7294 • E-ISSN: 1548-1433
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/aman.13804
OpenAlexW4311820049
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited42

This article describes the process of producing Gulu SoundTracks, a digital sonic ethnographic project accessible at gulusoundtracks.org, with four Ugandan music producers based in Gulu. The album comprises eight digital audio tracks that tell stories about Gulu musically through the compositional mixing of field soundscape recordings. Using field recordings as samples opened up sampling as a multimodal method for ethnographic storytelling which entails listening that is "vexed" (Weheliye 2005), archival, multiple, and generative. Pointing to insights from the project's creative process, the author explores sound praxis as a modality for amplifying fruitful connections between ethnographic and Afrodiasporic arts traditions. In conversation with others using sound methods in anthropology, ethnomusicology, and digital sound studies, this article stages a dialogue between sound-based work, critical treatments of Black and Afrosonic cultural production, and experimental ethnography. Sampling as method centers ethnographic imagination and points to critical possibilities field recording holds for anthropological knowledge production

Acoustics · Active listening · Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Conversation · Epistemology · Ethnography · Ethnomusicology · Field (mathematics · Improvisation · Musical · Praxis · Sociology · Sound (geography · Sound art · Soundscape · Temporalities · Visual arts · Anthropology · Communication · Diverse Musicological Studies · Music History and Culture · Philosophy · Sound Studies and Aurality

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