Music Research and the Sound Archive: A Meditation on Ethnomusicological Engagement with Collection-Oriented Research and Re(p)(m)atriation

Abstract

In this article, I address collecting and re(p)(m)atriation as research orientations. I draw on examples from Métis music to situate the impact of collection-oriented research, to interrogate my own practice as a Métis-music scholar, and to point to possibilities for the future. In presenting a history of collecting alongside an overview of re(p)(m)atriation, I offer readers an opportunity to meditate on the pervasiveness of collection-oriented research and how we might create a new ethnomusicology—meditations encouraged through poetic expressions. I suggest that twenty-first century ethnomusicology needs to turn towards rematriation, not only as an act of returning artifacts, but also as a way of orienting our work as scholars.

Archives, repatriation, agency, and changing circumstances: Reflections on shared soundscapes, collaborative activations, and repatriations in Latin America

“…Its linguistic association with nations ( patria ) and patriarchy are problematic. Monique Giroux prefers to use “rematriation” (Giroux, 2021, 104). Using either word assigns agency to the archive or collector that is returning recordings to somebody.…”