The colonial past through objects of sound
The Berlin Sound Archive (Lautarchiv) consists of an extensive collection of sound recordings, compiled for scientific purposes in the first half of the 20th century. Recorded on shellac are stories and songs, personal testimonies and poems, glossaries and numbers. This book engages with the archive by consistently focusing on recordings produced under colonial conditions.
With a firm commitment to postcolonial scholarship, Absent Presences in the Colonial Archive is a historical ethnography of a metropolitan institution that participated in the production and preservation of colonial structures of power and knowledge. The book examines sound objects and listening practices that render the coloniality of knowledge fragile and inconsistent, revealing the absent presences of colonial subjects who are given little or no place in established national narratives and collective memories.
Ebook available in Open Access.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Dealing with the colonial archive entails acknowledging the inability to know everything, accounting for the archiveβs limited and incomplete condition. Dealing with the colonial archive is not merely about stories of the past but also about the history of the present, and how it is interrupted by the past. β Irene Hilden, in conversation with New Books Network
Acknowledgments Abbreviations Use of Names
1 Introduction 2 THE ETHNOGRAPHIC β¦ 3 Failed Listening 4 β¦ THE ARCHIVAL β¦ 5 Close Listening 6 Collective Listening 7 β¦ THE ACOUSTIC 8 Coda
Appendix Notes Bibliography Index
A richly-detailed and warmly-written ethnography of listening, this book is poised to be a leader in the fields of archival, curatorial and museum studies, and similarly stands out as a uniquely-well blended contribution to sound ethnography, sound studies, ethnomusicology, anthropology and digital humanities. - Noel Lobley, University of Virginia
Die wegweisende Studie fΓΌr den Umgang mit den Archivalien eines kolonialen Archivs bietet viele wichtige AnknΓΌpfungspunkte fΓΌr theoretische Analysekonzepte und methodische ZugΓ€nge, auf die in Zukunft unbedingt ufgebaut werden sollte. Sie gibt auch fΓΌr den Aufbau gegenwΓ€rtiger Sammlungen wichtige AnstΓΆΓe. So geht Hilden zum Schluss auf die Sammlungspraxis von biometrischen Daten und Stimm-Samples durch das Bundesamt fΓΌr igration und FlΓΌchtlinge ein, die gesammelt werden, um die GlaubwΓΌrdigkeit der Fluchtgeschichten zu ΓΌberprΓΌfen. Hilden bringt die aktuellen Sammelpraktiken mit denen des Lautarchivs in Verbindung und mahnt an, dass dadurch aktuell wieder ein schwieriges Erbe entsteht, das nicht nur fΓΌr die GeflΓΌchteten heute hΓΆchst problematisch ist, sondern mit dem unsere Nachkommen sich in 100 Jahren wieder kritisch auseinandersetzen mΓΌssen. - Karin BΓΌrkert, H-Soz-Kult, 16.01.2025, https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-131287
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