Programme de bourses "Echanges Universitaires"

Sound Archives, Orality and Memory: African Voices in Switzerland and Namibia

This transnational project looks at Sound Archives in Switzerland and Namibia. It attemps to involve Swiss and Namibian Archives and Research Institutions on the level of sound or audio collections, archival management, repatriation of sound archives and their research potential.

Sound Archives are increasingly becoming the focus of both historical research and public interest. Archiving 'speech' and thus essentially orality (which includes, for example, interviews) but also music and other forms of audio sources makes Sound Archives important research, resource and heritage institutions. Whilst the documentary issues of sound, voice, speech and music are uncontested, the technical and methodological challenges are enormous. In addition, a general public, in constant search of 'the authentic voice' and long accustomed to the visuality of history, turns to historical sound as if this brings back absent voices, lost traditions and forgotten knowledge.

Two Workshops, one in Basel in early September 2009, and one in Windhoek later during the year, attempt to cover issues of conservation, digitalisation and repatriation, apart from research issues of sound archives of African origins in Switzerland and Namibia. For more update information on the Workshops and the Basel exhibition "What WE See" of a Namibian Sound Archives kindly consult the website of the Basler Afrika Bibliographien and the Zentrum für Afrikastudien (see below).

The project involves the Basler Afrika Bibliographien (Namibia Resource Centre & Southern Africa Library), the Zentrum für Afrikastudien at the University of Basel and the Fonoteca Nazionale Svizzera (Lugano) in Switzerland. In Namibia the National Archives of Namibia and the Department of Information and Communication Studies of the University of Namibia are the main partners. Initiator of the project: Dag Henrichsen, Basler Afrika Bibliographien.

Key words: Sound archives, audio collections, audio–visual documents, digitalisation of sound archives, repatriation of archives, African orality, oral history research.

Sound Archives Workshop, University of Namibia, Windhoek, 4 December 2009. The University Librarian, Ms Ellen Namhila (left) and Robin Tyson (lecturer, Media Studies). Photographer: Freddie Philander.

Partners

In Namibia:

Werner Hillebrecht
Head
National Archives of Namibia
E-Mail: whillebrecht@mec.gov.na

Dr. Cathrine Nengomasha
Head
Department of Information and Communication Studies at the University of Namibia
E-Mail: cnengomasha@unam.na

In Switzerland:

Dr. Veit Arlt, Koordination
Zentrum für Afrikastudien
University of Basel
E-Mail: veit.arlt@unibas.ch

Dr. Dag Henrichsen
Basler Afrika Bibliographien
E-Mail: dh@baslerafrika.ch

Dr. Pio Pellizzari
Director
Fonoteca Nazionale Svizzera
E-Mail: pellizari@fonoteca.ch