Connecting Indigenous Song Archives to Kin, Country and Language

Bibliographic Data

ID4549889
AuthorsClint Bracknell (0000-0002-9808-1624)
Year2019
Volume20
Issue2
Publication date2019-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Colonialism and Colonial History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1532-5768 • E-ISSN: 1532-5768
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/cch.2019.0016
OpenAlexW2968103560
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited19

In Australia and elsewhere, the repatriation of archival material has emerged as a common practice amongst music researchers working with Indigenous communities. The return of archival audio recordings and documentation to their communities of origin can assist local efforts to sustain endangered song traditions. Increased community access to old recordings of song performances may prompt recollections, trigger new performances and provide impetus to for communities to engage in processes of cultural revival and revitalisation. The Noongar song traditions of Western Australia's large southwest corner are critically endangered, as is the Noongar language. A review of pertinent archival recordings, plus more recently collected material, assists in tracing the tenuous maintenance of Noongar song traditions throughout a hostile and challenging historical context. Surveying the broader field of Indigenous music repatriation projects, the geographical, genealogical and ethnolinguistic connections between singers recorded in the past and those interested in sustaining musical traditions into the future loom as integral to the nature of Indigenous music revivals. Such factors may also serve to enrich archives, potentially providing previously absent metadata and contemporary contexts and purposes for old recordings

Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Documentation · Indigenous · Musical · Repatriation · Sociology · Visual arts · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Digital and Traditional Archives Management · Diverse Musicological Studies · History

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access