22. African Sounds, Power and Knowledge. Potentialities, challenges and decolonial possibilities of historical sound archives on Africa.

Between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, the area of the European colonies in Africa became the object of various scientific and cultural expeditions/missions which included the collection, recording and study of so-called ‘African folklore’, such as ‘traditional’ songs and dances, tales, proverbs and also African languages. These initiatives were aimed at rural African territories and were developed by various actors, including anthropologists, archaeologists, explorers, colonial officials and administrators, missionaries, linguists and ethnomusicologists. In the European colonial context of sub-Saharan Africa, these expeditions articulated ideals of ‘authenticity’, ‘tradition’ and ‘purity’, with ideas of race, ‘primitivism’, ‘exoticism’ and ‘tribalism’, reconciling philological, scientific and political motivations (Nhaitani, 2010; Valentim, 2022). Informed by the European ideology of a civilizing and saving mission, many of these expeditions served European colonial states as a means of colonial occupation of territories, bodies and minds. In the Portuguese overseas territories in Africa, this research was intensified in the post-war period and during late colonialism (Valentim, 2022), with some ethnomusicology expeditions continuing into the post-independence period. The sound archives produced as part of these expeditions/missions to Africa are still largely unknown to academia and the wider public and, above all, to the African nations and rural communities that were the target of these initiatives. Today, the vast majority of these archives and associated documentary sources (text, films and photographs) can be found in institutions located outside the African countries where they were originally produced, namely in the former metropolises, in the countries that sponsored the expeditions, or in specialized institutions located in South Africa or Ghana (Agawu, 2003). These African sound archives are quite specific and have raised several concerns for those who have been researching them. In what condition are they preserved? Who can access these files? In what ways do voices, languages, popular orature, dances and songs recorded some 40, 50 or 70 years ago constitute important historical sources for understanding colonial and/or post-independence identity dynamics? What legacy can these sound collections have within African communities today? What are the African perspectives on these archives produced on Africa? How can African subjects contribute to re-signifying this sound heritage from Africa? As we know, colonial archives are part of what Congolese writer and philosopher Valentin Mudimbe calls the “colonial library” (Mudimbe, 1988: 175). In Foucault’s sense, it is a set of knowledges that have produced power by defining, situating and hierarchizing the identities of the colonized and the colonizer, thus regulating sociabilities and creating subalternities. However, if analyzed in their interstices, archives not only document practices of domination, but also weaknesses, anxieties, collaborations, processes of power and counter-power (Stoler, 2010). In addition, historical sound archives make it possible to take into account subjectivities and political dynamics revealed by recorded voices and soundscapes that would otherwise be inaccessible (Hoffman, 2023; Valentim, 2022). However, it is necessary to listen not only to the archives, but also to the oral testimonies of those who interpreted the sound recordings, or their descendants. Thus, historical sound archives allow access to the acoustic, ontological and political dimension of the past in conjunction with various other sources, such as photographs, texts and oral memories, opening the way to reveal narratives that are absent from the archive, and questioning or complementing official memories of the colonial past (Valentim, 2022). Research with African communities has been carried out using collaborative and participatory interdisciplinary methodologies that combine ethnographic fieldwork, oral history collection and shared listening to sound recordings with the communities where these sound collections were originally recorded (see Hoffmann, 2023; Lobley, 2010; Valentim, 2016, 2018, 2022). These collections not only refer to a specific past, but also to the present and the future, in the sense that they influence the way we look at history and how we act today and wish for another possible tomorrow. Considering that the historical archive is a political and social construction, and taking as its starting point research carried out with African sound archives that were produced as part of expeditions/missions to Africa, in various countries, both in the colonial period and immediately after independence, this panel invites discussion on various themes, including: dilemmas and challenges of research with these collections; provenance studies of these collections and archives; practices of colonial domination, violence, agency and strategies of African resistance; colonial legacies of historical sound archives, continuities and discontinuities; use of participatory and collaborative methodologies; processes and policies of patrimonialization of African expressive cultures, and their relationship with national, cultural and ethnic identities; possibilities of decolonization and historical reparation.