2 January 2021
Merriam (1977) wrote of comparative musicology as being the ‘predecessor’ of ethnomusicology, a term allegedly introduced by Jaap Kunst in 1950. Merriam brings the two fields of work into a ‘historical-theoretical perspective,’ which evidences a common interest in non-European musics. Contemporary ethnomusicological practices, particularly those which follow decolonial approaches, offer the possibility to consider broader historiographical developments in the humanities. The present proposal is to be understood as a chain link amidst ongoing acts of decolonisation conducted by universities, museums and archives. For this purpose, it brings into discussion concepts central to ethnomusicology such as ‘sound object’ and ‘sound archive.’ The proposal resonates with the research of Dr. Barbara Titus into the (ethno)musicological legacy of Jaap Kunst (1891-1960) whose sound collection and written archive are located at University of Amsterdam. Titus’s current research focuses on one of the foundational ethnomusicological collections of the world and it therefore raises questions from an angle of current engagements with colonial sonic legacies.
Rui Vilela is an artist and a PhD-student of the doctoral programme in Music with specialisation in Ethnomusicology at the University of Aveiro. In 2020 he was accepted as a candidate by the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. His research project focuses on the sounding practices of the Bissau-Guinean Liberation Movement (1963-1974). He has been a grant holder, among others, from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2020, 2017, 2016), the Berlin Senate for Culture and Europe (2019, 2017) and the Kunstfonds Foundation (2018). He has a Master of Fine Art from the Dutch Art Institute, main field of study – artistic research.