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Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines the challenges of treating the (re)circulation of recordings as an ethnographic work, particularly when (re)circulating sensitive sound materials that contain the voices of Central Asian Nazi collaborators to descendants who might not want to listen.

Paper Abstract:

During WWII recordings were made in Vienna with citizens from Central Asia – Red Army soldiers who appear to have become members of SS and Wehrmacht.

The (re)circulation of this ethically sensitive sound materials to descendants in Central Asia is the starting point of doing ethnography. While reconnecting these recorded voices with the cultural environments of their source communities, (re)circulation is not the end but rather the initiation of a complex process. It is the reintroduction of these sound materials, which may be re-inscribed with a multitude of local meanings the home localities of the recorded individuals.

How will the descendants react if the words they listen and the information these recordings unveil evoke ethical predicaments or shame?

How do we as researchers deal with the mental load we impose on the recipients of “restituted” objects? Are we as ethnographers prepared for (re)circulation projects with our fieldwork methods ?

The risks and hazards in ethnographic fieldwork are not always predictable or preventable in advance. Could supervision or a mentoring program, especially during the fieldwork, help to guide ethnographers through the multilayered (including psychological) challenges of fieldwork? I believe so. Through an accompanying mentorship, ethnographers could assess risks and ethical dilemmas, enhancing their ability to critically engage with their work and its reverberations in the field.