Paper short abstract:

Taking three individual collections kept at the Peruvian Institute of Ethnomusicology as my point of departure, I examine the place that the Amazon region occupies within this research archive. I reflect on the challenges of accessing heterogeneous archival materials since they were collected.

Paper long abstract:

Taking three individual collections of Peruvian and foreign researchers concerning Indigenous peoples of the Central Rainforest stored in the sound archive of the Institute of Ethnomusicology as my point of departure, I examine the place that the Amazon region occupies within this institutional research archive. It was created in 1985 as the Archive of Traditional Andean Music based on a project to preserve traditional Andean music supported by the Ford Foundation. Starting in 1999, its audiovisual ethnographic documentation began including the Peruvian Amazon, but it did so according to the Andean model of cultural preservation: audiovisually documenting the calendar of festivals, dances and music. Several individual collections concerning original peoples of the Peruvian Amazon entrusted to the Institute of Ethnomusicology followed other objectives, among them the collection of Richard Chase Smith concerning the Yanesha. I reflect on the challenges of accessing and analyzing these heterogeneous archival materials since they were collected pursuing different objectives ranging from cultural preservation to ethnopolitical empowerment and according to diverging criteria.