Decolonizing South East Asian Sound Archives
Lead Research Organisation:
School of Oriental and African Studies
Department Name: Sch of Languages, Cultures & Linguistics
Abstract
DeCoSEAS is a transnational NL-FR-UK research project that renegotiates established understandings
of heritage curation. An experienced, cross-disciplinary team opens up three unique collections,
located in Europe, with extremely rare music and sound from Southeast Asia (SEA), that have
worldwide fame in terms of their quality, quantity and diversity, but are barely accessible. DeCoSEAS
facilitates:
physical access for SE Asian stakeholders (WP1),
online access for scholars, artists and stakeholders worldwide (WP2),
publication channels about heritage curation for SE Asian stakeholders (WP3) and
outreach projects for culture consumers worldwide (WP4).
Each WP is devised to achieve corresponding objectives:
1. Interrogate the colonial patrimony of archives,
2. Conceive a new digital curational framework,
3. Transfer publishing and editing agencies about heritage curation to heritage stakeholders, and
4. Democratize curatorial practices.
The objectives constitute DeCoSEAS envisaged decolonization of heritage curation that acutely
responds to current public and academic debates on de/colonization and heritage restitution. The
project is a pilot study for this vision adopting a knowledge chain with three formative orientation
points: the improvement of access to heritage, the transfer of agency to stakeholders of heritage, and
the diversification of the dialogue about heritage curation.
DeCoSEAS employs a paradigm-shifting methodological approach focused on hearing and listening as
dialogical modes of knowledge formation. It complements conventional academic faculties of
watching and reading as modes of singular objectification. DeCoSEAS strives for the inclusion of
voices, stances and interpretations that have hitherto remained unheard in existing discourses about
heritage by attending to multiple, time-bound and intricately entangled voices simultaneously (those
recorded from the past and those from SE Asian partners today). With these action plans, DeCoSEAS
aims to provide new insights in and new practices of heritage curation and participation.
of heritage curation. An experienced, cross-disciplinary team opens up three unique collections,
located in Europe, with extremely rare music and sound from Southeast Asia (SEA), that have
worldwide fame in terms of their quality, quantity and diversity, but are barely accessible. DeCoSEAS
facilitates:
physical access for SE Asian stakeholders (WP1),
online access for scholars, artists and stakeholders worldwide (WP2),
publication channels about heritage curation for SE Asian stakeholders (WP3) and
outreach projects for culture consumers worldwide (WP4).
Each WP is devised to achieve corresponding objectives:
1. Interrogate the colonial patrimony of archives,
2. Conceive a new digital curational framework,
3. Transfer publishing and editing agencies about heritage curation to heritage stakeholders, and
4. Democratize curatorial practices.
The objectives constitute DeCoSEAS envisaged decolonization of heritage curation that acutely
responds to current public and academic debates on de/colonization and heritage restitution. The
project is a pilot study for this vision adopting a knowledge chain with three formative orientation
points: the improvement of access to heritage, the transfer of agency to stakeholders of heritage, and
the diversification of the dialogue about heritage curation.
DeCoSEAS employs a paradigm-shifting methodological approach focused on hearing and listening as
dialogical modes of knowledge formation. It complements conventional academic faculties of
watching and reading as modes of singular objectification. DeCoSEAS strives for the inclusion of
voices, stances and interpretations that have hitherto remained unheard in existing discourses about
heritage by attending to multiple, time-bound and intricately entangled voices simultaneously (those
recorded from the past and those from SE Asian partners today). With these action plans, DeCoSEAS
aims to provide new insights in and new practices of heritage curation and participation.
Publications
Juan, Cristina
Decolonial Strategies for Rethinking Archival Access
Simonnot, Josephine
(2021)
Vers La Décolonisation Des Archives Sonores Enregistrées En Asie Du Sud-est
Simonnot, Joséphine
(2021)
Musiques enregistrées et circulation des savoirs : nouveaux défis, nouvelles pratiques
Titus, B.
(2022)
Postcolonial Sound Archives: Challenges and Potentials, edited by
Titus, Barbara
(2021)
"Hearing The Given and The Made"
in Audibilities of Colonialism and Extractivism [the world of music (new series) 10/2], 79-105.
Yamomo, MeLê & Barbara Titus
(2021)
"The Persistent Refrain of the Colonial Archival Logic" / "Colonial Entanglements and Sonic Transgressions: Sounding Out the Jaap Kunst Collection"
in The World of Music
| Title | Decolonial Frequencies Festival Echoing Europe |
| Description | Decolonial Frequencies was a series of events over the entire 2021/22 theatre season. More than 20 artists, black perspectives, queer approaches, Asian-diasporic occupations, post-migrant traditions, and voices of color, create numerous performances, lectures, and concerts in their constructed acoustic spaces - with critical amplitude, in gyrating oscillation, and in uncontrollable interference. Decolonial Frequencies is curated by meLê yamomo at the Theater Ballhaus Naunynstrasse. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The encounters created a measure of visibility and appreciation for South East Asian cultural practices . The various shows were well attended by migrant and post-migrant audiences. The reviews of the shows were all positive. |
| URL | https://www.decoseas.org/category/music/ |
| Description | Musical Epistemology. Master course University of Amsterdam |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| URL | https://studiegids.uva.nl/xmlpages/page/2021-2022/zoek-vak/vak/87194 |
| Description | The Colonial Legacies of Sound Archives. Bachelor course University of Amsterdam. |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| URL | https://studiegids.uva.nl/xmlpages/page/2021-2022/zoek-vak/vak/87084 |
| Description | A Digital repatriation project for the co-production of knowledge with the Tboli and Bagobo Communities of Southern Mindanao - IKE Impact and Knowledge Exchange (IKE) Fund |
| Amount | £8,305 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | X519 ( Internal Worktribe Number) |
| Organisation | School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2022 |
| End | 07/2023 |
| Description | Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences (KNAW) Award |
| Amount | € 15,000 (EUR) |
| Organisation | Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences |
| Sector | Learned Society |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Start | 05/2021 |
| End | 03/2023 |
| Title | Decolonizing Metadata models for Colonial Sound Archives |
| Description | The consortium worked over the metadata fields provided for Sound Archives by Dublin Core, and analysed the categories against the data. The result of the very granular exercise was a set of highly customized metadata fields that would allow for better representation of the data when viewed from the community source's perspective. This would allow for greater findability by source communities and also a break with the hierarchical models of eurocentric categories for sound data. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Right now, the UK development team has programmed the new set of metadata fields into the CMS. The new set has allowed the RAs and researchers to input the data with more culturally informed care and thought. |
| URL | https://omekas.seasia-hearing.org/admin/item |
| Title | Digital Repatriation as a Reparative Approach to Colonial Archives |
| Description | Using the indigenous Blaan term Kastulen - this participatory research method is a conversation that uses the ethnographic methodology of photo elicitation. In the workshops, we use high resolution photos or sound files gathered from colonial repositories and create a site of engagement. We create a conversation among the cultural bearers , correct and annotate the catalogue records, trace provenance, and encourage opportunities for co-production of knowledge and an equitable knowledge exchange. The direct output of the collaborative research will be various inscriptive media (local film documentation as well as digital exhibits) The methodology hopes that the re-connection made between the cultural stakeholders with their exiled objects of knowledge (textual, sonic, and material) would result in cultural memory projects that can create new markers for collective self-identity and agency. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Directly related to DECOSEAS, we are digitally repatriating sound files to the Tboli peoples of Lake Sebu in the Philippines. The recording from the 70's will feature sound files of chanted epics, various chants, and a recorded political speech from a revered Datu in the 70's. |
| URL | https://philippinestudies.uk/mapping/blaan_in-conversation |
| Description | BBC Sound Archives Services |
| Organisation | British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | A growing and annotated collection of newly catalogued and digitized BBC sound materials at the British Library. Methodology: Dr Juan, with some research assistants, has been going through the BBC paper catalogues at the Briitish Library to identify the materials that are relevant to the Decolonizing South East Asian Sound Archives project. Once materials are found, we correlate these with British Library sound archive numbers -- a majority of which are really just barebone catalog number entries without any further metadata or description of the material. As of this date, we have identified 250 BBC materials on South East Asia, catalogued and described/transcribed them, and have requested the digitization of these materials for listening access at the British Library. 92 of these materials have been digitized and made accessible at the British Library onsite and now also available to the general public through this project. |
| Collaborator Contribution | In various meetings with the BBC copyright request team headed by Jake Berger of the BBC, a collaboration is developing between the project and the Fair use Copyright unit at the BBC to make the sound recordings we have identified (and the British Library has digitized) - to make these recordings available online through the DECOSEAS digital platform. Also through this unit, we have been able to access ( with an NDA) a database on BBC Newscripts from 1920's-1960. We use this database to do further research on the presence of the BBC in South East Asia and create a more complete picture of our analysis of BBC history in the region. |
| Impact | Use of BBC New scripts for research https://ns.bbcgenome.com/ Developing an agreement to make BBC sound archives available online for virtual access especially to the stakeholders from South East Asia. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | British Library Sound Archives |
| Organisation | The British Library |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Dr Juan has been collating the records from the BBC Sound Archives, with the catalogs of the British Library. In a lot of instances, the records do not sync and it is often difficult to find the recordings that relate to South East Asia. We hope that with the knowledge-base we are creating, we will be able to aggregate all the data and sync up the BBC written archives with the BL catalogues and have a complete picture of BBC broadcasts to South East Asia until 1960. DeCoSEAS will select the Southeast Asian digitized broadcasts from the larger body of overseas recordings with the aim of contextualizing sonic materials. These are presented online for crowdsourcing, data enrichment, and expert community building. It also hopes to facilitate greater physical access to the materials on site. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Sound and Moving Image Archives at the British Library have given us access to the paper catalogs of the BBC broadcast recordings that are currently stored at the British Library. They have integrated new catalogue descriptions and information on the sound recordings in CADENZA and made these recordings findable onsite. They have also digitized the materials the research team has requested from them and made them available on the BL sound servers which can now be accessed onsite. |
| Impact | Additions to the dataset for the BBC Empire South East Asian Soundscapes, which is a subset of the South East Asia Hearing Aggregated platform. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | MyArchives Malaysia |
| Organisation | Monash University |
| Department | Malaysia Campus |
| Country | Malaysia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Creating a conversation with MYArchives so we can assess their needs in terms of knowledge transfer and enriching each other's aggregating datasets. The UK research team has also conducted a workshop with MyArchives on how to set up an OMEKA site. The workshop resulted in an actual test site with server space purchased by the UK Decoseas team that MyArchives can use for testing. |
| Collaborator Contribution | MyArchives (Malaysian Audio-Visual Archives) is a project developed by the ICTM National Committee of Malaysia under the auspices of the International Council for Traditional Music. This project consists of a digital archive of performing arts developed through the joint efforts of scholars, performers and researchers focusing on traditions, past and present. The material is preserved in digital format for the purposes of research, sustainability and viability of the performing arts of the country.Myarchives gave a presentation of its work, goals and needs in the DECOSEAS workshop series. This will be used by the project for needs assessment. |
| Impact | Presentation in the Workshop series March 10 2022 Collaboration in a Conference Panel for the 46th ICTM World Conference (Lisbon, July 2022). Omeka site set up for MyArchives |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | National Library of Laos Institute of Resource Governance and Social Change |
| Organisation | National Library of Laos |
| Country | Lao People's Democratic Republic |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | National Library of Laos Institute of Resource Governance and Social Change |
| Collaborator Contribution | Creating a conversation with the Library so we can assess their needs in terms of knowledge transfer and enriching each other's aggregating datasets. |
| Impact | Seminar Presentation to the Research consortium with ongoing conversations on how we can make sound datasets accessible to them. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | University of the Philippines Center for Ethnomusicology (UPCE) |
| Organisation | University of the Philippines |
| Country | Philippines |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Creating a conversation with UPCE so we can assess their needs in terms of knowledge transfer and enriching each other's aggregating datasets. |
| Collaborator Contribution | UP CENTER FOR ETHNOMUSICOLOGY is a center for music research with material collections on the musics and musical traditions in the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and representative areas from other continents. UPCE gave a presentation of its work, goals and needs in the DECOSEAS workshop series. This will be used by the project for needs assessment. |
| Impact | Seminar Presentation to the Research consortium on 2021.12.10 Collaboration in a Conference Panel for the 46th ICTM World Conference (Lisbon, July 2022). |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Title | Aggregation of International sound archives of CNRS / Musée de l'Homme - Paris |
| Description | Aggregating platform for the CNRS and the DECOSEAS site. The International sound archives of CNRS / Musée de l'Homme encompass field recordings of music and oral traditions from around the world, from 1900 to the present. The establishment of these archives represents a long process begun by the musicologist André Schaeffner in the 1930s to collect, organize and archive audio recordings such as the Paris Universal Exhibition cylinders (1900). These audio materials were preserved in the newly established Phonothèque in the Département d'Ethnologie Musicale of the Musée d'ethnographie du Trocadero in Paris. In 1937, the Musée d'ethnographie became the new Musée de l'Homme. In 2009, the Musée de l'Homme was closed for renovations, and the audiotapes transferred to the French National Library, where the digitizing process has come to an end and put online through the Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (CREM). Today, around 30 000 audio and video files are available online for a wide audience, including ca. 3 500 recordings from Southeast Asia and Austronesian World (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, East Timor, Papua), with main collectors being Jose Maceda, Nicole Revel, Georges Condominas, Louis Berthe, Jacques Dournes, Dana Rappoport, etc. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The site is still in development. |
| URL | https://omekas.seasia-hearing.org/s/all/item |
| Title | Customized CMS metadata models |
| Description | A highly customized CMS platform based on Omeka. The customization was a result of debates within the research consortium around metadata models for Sound categories and genres. It has also allowed for the Toraja website (migration of a Flash application to an web open source technology) •Migration from flash interface to web site •Preparation of 10,000 data files for migration to the EHESS research data repository, Didomena https://didomena.ehess.fr/?locale=en We have also worked with a choice of a logicist reasoning visualization •Preparation of audio and visual data •Creation of specifications for the production of a website •Choice of partners (It, Designer, Ux, hosting university) |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The customization of the metadata fields has allowed the three discovering partnerships to input data without the colonial categories of authorship or scale models that are eurocentric. https://omekas.seasia-hearing.org/admin/item. Each member of the consortium has been adding data to the CMS as our research continues. |
| URL | https://omekas.seasia-hearing.org/admin/item |
| Title | Decolonizing South East Asian Sound Archives Portal site |
| Description | The web application tool is an informational hub that gives details on the initiatives and research outputs of the project. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | We have been able to use the blog feature of the site to post real time talks and engagements, as well as announce fellowships and calls for proposals through the site. |
| URL | http://decoseas.org |
| Title | Jaap Kunst |
| Description | The web application is a knwledgebase of The Jaap Kunst collection, located in Amsterdam under the curatorship of Barbara Titus. The Jaap Kunst is an ethnographic sound collection. Jaap Kunst (1891-1960) recorded a wealth of music and sound from the Dutch East Indies between 1919 and 1934 of more than 400 of wax cylinders. His collecting methods adhered to colonial stratifications of society and the scientific (archeological and botanical) classification norms of the time. His collection contains anonymized sound specimens representing distinct and timeless cultures. Collecting and classifying the peoples that inhabited the empire was intended to bolster the notion of it as empire. These methods were seminal to the development of a new scholarly practice (ethnomusicology) that is currently established as an academic discipline throughout the world, and of which Kunst is widely considered to be a "founding father". His sound archive has been digitized in the Phonogrammarchiv in Berlin, but was not available online. Since Kunst recorded music from the entire archipelago under Dutch rule, the collection has raised the interest of national Indonesian institutions (Museum Nasional [AP]) and government (Ministry of Culture and Education) since it is considered representative for the current Indonesian nation state whose borders coincide with those of the Dutch East Indies. The digital platform seeks to make the Jaap Kunst sound collection discoverable but also enriched through the creation of correlating links to Jaap Kunst letters and photos related to the individual sound recordings. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | This web tool is still in development, but its prototype is undergoing testing by consortium partners in South East Asia. Because of the access granted by the site, the project has been able to gather fellowship proposals based on accessing the Jaap Kunst materials. |
| Title | Redesign and Addition of Features to the Informational Website |
| Description | The consortium partners worked on adding functionalities to the website to create greater engagement with the general public through interlinked blog posts and news stories. After a series of user testing with the partners in South East Asia, we decided to create a way for partners in South East Asia to post news and information on the site. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | This development allowed for greater engagement with the partners in South East Asia. |
| URL | https://www.decoseas.org/news/ |
| Title | Songs of the thrice-blooded land-Ritual music from Toraja |
| Description | The digital platform and mobile application is a retooling of a collection of almost extinct ritual music of the Toraja from Sulawesi in Indonesia recorded by Dana Rappoport between 1991 and 2005, shaped into an interactive multimedia website formatted from a now obsolete DVD. The platform will showcase a unique online study of the ritual music of the Toraja people in Sulawesi - musical heritage that belongs to Austronesian cultural stratum established in Indonesia around 3000 BCE, now on the brink of extinction. The anthology, published in 2009, gives access to pre-colonial and pre-Christian Torajan music, practiced by only 5% of Toraja people resisting Christian and colonial cultural impositions. It presents an entire ritual cycle: 40 hours of songs and poems, translated into three languages (Indonesian, English, French) and accompanied by extensive documentary material (2000 photographs and 120 minutes of video). |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Still in development, the multi-media platform will allow for access to the video and its recordings from Songs of the thrice-blooded land . The intended audience - focussing more on the culture bearers in Indonesia, has shaped the direction of the platform towards being mobile-friendly. ( A majority of users of digital technology use their mobile phones to access information). |
| Title | Soundscapes of Empire ( this site is still under development) |
| Description | Soundscapes of Empire ( BBC Broadcasts to and About South East Asia) gathered and instigated by Cristina Juan hold a diversity of recorded broadcasts. It includes recordings among others, of broadcasts by the BBC Empire Service to the Far East. Started in 1932, the BBC Empire Service occasionally recorded their broadcasts, often to enable recordings to be broadcast at different times. The audience to which the Empire Service broadcast was extremely diverse and transnational. Radio could be received beyond imperial borders. At the same time, broadcasts were tailored to the social and racial stratifications that featured colonial society, observing strict compartmentalization between colonial settlers, "natives", and local upper classes, and between languages. Recordings were expensive and only done for practical reasons. The idea that some recordings were important to keep for longer term re-use or historical reasons developed gradually and inconsistently across the BBC. Hence the recorded material is selective, but enables us to listen to voices that might otherwise remain unheard: commercially viable popular music of the time, political rallies, debates, voice inflections and sonic postures that positioned colonial subjects socially and ideologically - ranging from Cantonese opera concerts in Singapore to Indonesian president Sukarno's Independence Speech, and reports on European refugees during WWII in SE Asia f.e. The broadcasts make us hear the formative political events as much as the every-day life of people within and outside the British imperial sphere during late colonialism and early postcolonialism (1930s-1950s). There have been a number of preservation and digitization initiatives as the BBC transitions to an "open archive". |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Currently, the site is in development as we continue to gather materials that relate to the BBC in South East Asia from 1932-1960. Most of the sound archives are stored at the British Library, but as noted by Paul Wilson of the British Library, 40 percent of these materials remain uncatalogued. We are working with the British Library curators to synch the BBC archive accession numbers with the descriptions on recording labels as well as the BBC paper catalogs. We are also looking into the written archives at Caversham as well as residual recordings at the BBC Sound Archives to write a more detailed narrative of the history and reach of BBC broadcasts to South East Asia. |
| URL | https://omekas.seasia-hearing.org/s/bbc-sea/page/welcome |
| Title | South East Asia Hearing Aggregated Knowledgebase |
| Description | A digital platform aggregating the newly disclosed collections ( Jaap Kunst Collection, the BBC Soundscapes of Empire and the CNRS ) with access to other digital sound archives in Southeast Asia and Europe. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | This is a test site in development by the DECOSEAS consortium. Southeast Asia Hearing is a digital platform that provides access to three unique, rare, fand previously barely accessible sonic and musical collections from Southeast Asia located in Europe, namely: - The Jaap Kunst Collection (NL), - The BBC Empire Service broadcasts (UK), - The CNRS /Musée de l'Homme sound archives, and the Toraja collection (FR), The collections are put together in a common model designed in partnership with scholars, artists, local societies from Southeast Asia. The platform therefore innovates with a new digital curational framework thought collaboratively. The Southeast Asia Hearing portal has been built for broader interactions with external contributors. In order to optimize open access and user-friendliness, Southeast Asia Hearing enables internet users in Southeast Asia, not only to consult the material, but also to enrich the collections' meta-data. It therefore allows the exchange of knowledge and ideas between people in Southeast Asia and diasporic communities either in Europe or elsewhere, transferring curatorial agency to these stakeholders. Through the online constellation of material, visitors are able to employ the material for their own ends and get in touch with each other, building a community of academic and non-academic experts on the virtually presented sonic material. The Southeast Asia Hearing platform aims at gathering material from SEA both other European sound archives, as well as Southeast Asian sound archives, positioning itself as a discussion platform about access to, agency over, and dialogue about heritage curation and participation. It builds on existing expertise with metadata aggregation and multilingualism of the europeana.eu project, and it conforms to intellectual property rules concerning public domain data such as the "Rights Labelling Guidelines". While working closely with europeana.eu partners, the Southeast Asia Hearing portal has the objective to accentuate curatorial practices that might be unarticulated within mainstream Europe-based heritage discourses. The digital platform Southeast Asia Hearing is part of the transnational DeCoSEAS (Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives) research project, funded by JPI-CH (see Institutions and Partners). It executes the project's objective of renegotiation of established understandings of heritage curation. Through Southeast Asia Hearing among other working packages, DeCoSEAS is a pilot study to adopt a knowledge chain with three formative orientation points: the improvement of access to heritage, the transfer of agency to stakeholders of heritage, and the diversification of the dialogue about heritage curation, while interrogating the colonial patrimony of archives. The collaborative digital curation, online access, and community building will enable the DeCoSEAS team and the global academic community in heritage studies to implement changes in the curation of cultural heritage by adjusting criteria for inclusion and exclusion and for the establishment of taxonomic archival categories. The focus on the sound that can be heard, sonically adapted and reiterated by many actors simultaneously, both individually and collectively, secures this rethinking of heritage curation as polyphonous and time-bound. DeCoSEAS, therefore, employs a paradigm-shifting methodological approach focused on hearing and listening as dialogical modes of knowledge formation. The project strives for the inclusion of voices, stances, and interpretations that have hitherto remained unheard in existing discourses about heritage by attending to multiple, time-bound and intricately entangled voices simultaneously (those recorded from the past and those from SE Asian partners today). The objectives constitute DeCoSEAS envisaged decolonization of heritage curation that acutely responds to current public and academic debates on de/colonization and heritage restitution. These action plans, aim to provide new insights into new practices of heritage curation and participation. |
| URL | https://decoseas.lsd.tn/search |
| Description | 'Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS)' Contribution to the Roundtable |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Titus, Barbara 2021. 'Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS)' Contribution to the Roundtable Archival Processes and Social and Historical Practices of Listening at the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) Conference Atlanta (USA) [online]. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | 'Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives' Contribution |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 'Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives' Contribution to the panel Activism, Academic Research and Decoloniality at the conference The Future of the Dutch Colonial Past, Amsterdam Museum, Hermitage Amsterdam (NL). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | 3-day Formal Working Group on Decolonising South East Asian Sound Archives in Cavite, Philippines |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In August 2022, partners and media practitioners from all over South East Asia, gathered at a three-day working symposium on the theoretical and practical steps that need to be taken toward decolonizing South East Asian sound archiving. The workshop was able to gather a consensus on the real needs of sound archivists from the region as they try to get access to or engage with both colonial archives deposited in the West, but also their own regional and trans-regional archives. The workshop resulted in a draft Manifesto for South East Asian Sound archivists, and a collaboratively produced metadata structure for knowledgebases. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | DeCoSEAS bi-weekly Seminar Series November 2021 - May 2022. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Institutional Partners as well as other potential partners were able to gather together to discuss particular. problems related to accessing sound archives or using these for engagement with source communities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Hoebe, Marleen 2021. Interview with Barbara Titus and meLê yamomo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Hoebe, Marleen 2021. "Twee UvA'ers proberen beroemd geluidsarchief weer bijeen te brengen" Interview with Barbara Titus and meLê yamomo, Folia (7 May). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Intersections of ethnography and historiography |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Titus, Barbara 2021. 'Intersections of ethnography and historiography in the constitution of sound archives from Indonesia' at the Symposium Rethinking the History of Indonesian Music, University of California, Davis (USA) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Interview with Barbara Titus and meLê yamomo, NRC Cultureel Supplement |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Gandolahage, Rahul 2021. "Grote archieven koloniale geluiden amper toegankelijk" Interview with Barbara Titus and meLê yamomo, NRC Cultureel Supplement (25 February), C14-15. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Omeka workshop with Malaysian Partners |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | The Omeka workshop was conducted as a partner led participants experience and expectations. Determine goals. Refine content around reaching those goals. Break up concepts and tasks to learn in a logical order. Slide preparation Organise content into a sequence of slides with visual aides to assist understanding. Make slides functional with all the links working. Write up a simple one page summary that can be referenced later by students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Roundtable Discussion on Archival Practice at the International Council for Traditional Music 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The roundtable discussion on revisiting Archival Practices Of Southeast Asian Heritage: Repatriation, Access, And Community Engagement was presented to an audience of Ethnomusicologists from all over the world. There was a lot of interest sparked by the presentations on digital repatriation and community engagement. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://ictmusic.org/ictm2022/programme |
| Description | Sonic Returns- Repatriating Sounds in Exile |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Several events in a series called Sonic Returns. First at SOAS University of London. Prof. Verne de la Peña (Tunog At Tinig) who presented the repatriation project of the UP Center for Ethnomusicology. This will be followed by a conversation between MeLê Yamomo (PI Sonic Entanglements/DeCoSEAS) and Cristina Juan (PI-UK, Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives - Decoseas) about their work on the digitization work on Southeast Asian historical sound recordings and their ongoing initiatives for sound repatriation. The rest of the series were archival encounters, lectures, and panel discussions at the BBC/British Library, CNRS France, Jaap Kunst Ethnomusicology Collection, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Berlin Phonogram Archive, Sound Archive of Humboldt University-Berlin. Sonic Returns mediate in the repatriation of sounds on exile. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://sonic-entanglements.com/sonic-returns/?fbclid=IwAR1Tj0uEGFsHo7pJZjBBlDBzhLCaQ1B-7k4Ql-leFh4h... |
| Description | What to do with field recordings? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Dana Rappoport, 2021 What to do with field recordings ? American Institute for Indonesian Studies, www.aifis.org, Michigan State University (MSU), 22th June, 2021 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |