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- Convenors:
-
Susanne Österlund-Pötzsch
(Society of Swedish Literature in Finland)
Cliona O'Carroll (University College Cork)
Maryna Chernyavska (University of Alberta)
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- Chair:
-
Nicolas Le Bigre
(Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen)
- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the ways writing communicates but also selects, confines and conceals in the archives. Many collections consist of “beyond text” material, such as sound, photography and video. How do different formats document e.g. the sensory, tacit knowledge and non-normative experiences?
Long Abstract:
Folklore archives developed out of the ambition to document and preserve oral culture for the future. Making notations – sometimes phonetically to reflect different dialects – became the primary way of documenting folk culture. However, writing permeates the whole archival process from collecting to cataloguing to making the material accessible. In each step, writing may act as a tool of preservation and communication, but equally as a problematic practice that selects, limits, confines and conceals the original.
In this panel, we aim to critically explore the ways different forms of writing influence and form archive material. Many tradition archives have the main part of their collections in the form of sound recordings and/or photographs (as well as video, drawings, maps etc). Voice recordings often have an immediacy difficult to convey in writing. How do different forms of documentation help us to communicate the sensory and non-verbal? How are tacit knowledge, body memory and non-normative experiences documented? What can be read beyond the written words, e.g. in ego documents such as letters and diaries? What does the materiality of archive material tell us, and what is gained, or perhaps lost, in the digital archive? Can emotions be archived, and can the senses be a gateway to understand the archive?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
Archives perform a feat of uncanny haunting. By looking at examples of food, the weather, and childbirth in the Scottish Studies Archive, this paper will explore the power of an archive to bear witness to the ghosts in academic, social and cultural histories through what it does not contain.
Paper Abstract:
The Scottish Studies Archive holds over 33,000 records; it is a rich collection. However, an archive relies on the collectors, archivists, and informants that created and contributed to it, each of whom carries to their work or recording their own cultural history and the biases of their cultural moment, and on the technology available to them at the time. As a result, the archive contains an impressive dataset of information on some topics and practices, such as fishing, but on others, such as how to cook the fish, it seems silent. The reasons for these silences are many – collectors who did not think to ask, gender, race, or class relations, informants who saw the topic as too sensitive or too mundane or simply did not have time to talk.
It is not that these silent topics are completely absent from the archive, rather they appear through allusion: they appear as ghosts. Archives perform a feat of uncanny haunting, as Avery Gordon describes it ‘not a return to the past but a reckoning of its repression in the present’ (1997, 8). At least three things only appear in archives indirectly: the process of collective knowledge production, the natural world, and the somatic. By looking at what is missing through the examples of food, the weather, and childbirth, in the Scottish Studies Archive this paper will explore the power of an archive to bear witness to the ghosts in academic, social and cultural histories through what it does not contain.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper takes a phenomenological approach to explore archivists' embodied engagement with digital sound archives. It highlights how embodied practices reveal the materiality of digital sound archives, uncovering tacit knowledge and non-verbal experiences beyond text.
Paper Abstract:
This paper critically examines the embodied experiences of archivists in relation to digital sound archives, interrogating the materiality and sensory dimensions of digital sound collections through a phenomenological lens. While writing has historically served as the dominant method for documenting oral culture, sound archives—particularly in their digital form—offer alternative, multi-sensory modes of engagement that challenge textual and normative archival practices. Central to this study is the role of archivists as embodied agents whose sensory and physical encounters with sound materials shape processes of interpretation, preservation, and access.
This research argues that digital transformation not only reconfigures engagement with physical archives but also underscores the materiality of born-digital and digitally preserved sound objects. Contrary to perceptions of digital archives as disembodied and immaterial, sound recordings reveal their materiality through phenomenological encounters that foreground sensation, tactility, and affect. Such engagements facilitate the documentation and communication of tacit knowledge, non-verbal experiences, and ephemeral phenomena, which the primacy of writing otherwise obscures.
Drawing on primary material collected from fieldwork research within the British Library’s Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) Project, this paper explores how archivists’ embodied interactions with digital sound objects critically influence the construction, interpretation, and authenticity of digital sound archives. Ultimately, this paper underscores the importance of acknowledging the embodied labour of archivists and the phenomenological materiality of digital sound archives in a continually evolving digital environment.
Paper Short Abstract:
This presentation will report on a draft Tradition Archives Code of Ethics, which outlines the values of folklore archivists as they relate to their professional practice and the ethical considerations that are relevant to their work. We attempt to capture the tacit knowledge and the unwritten values that guide such work.
Paper Abstract:
Tradition archives operate within the field of folkloristics or ethnology and, at the same time, they employ a variety of approaches in their research activities and day-to-day operations that can be viewed as professional folklore archival practice. This practice differs from what is known as professional archival practice in the information world of records management and archives. It is concerned as much with the collection of traditions as with their preservation and dissemination. It also often includes stewardship of community relationships beyond the fieldwork and archiving stages. Ethical considerations apply to many aspects of the work of folklore archivists: from fieldwork and data collection to definitions of roles of multiple contributors, to documentation of ownership, access and usage rights to the collected research data, to description of materials and making them accessible. These ethical considerations guide folklore archivists and provide a framework for their activities both in the field and in the archives.
This presentation will report on a draft of the Tradition Archives Code of Ethics that aims to capture the values of folklore archivists as they relate to their professional practice and the ethical considerations that are relevant to their work. Discussions of ethics are part of every encounter of folklore archivists. This project will attempt to capture the tacit knowledge and the unwritten values that guide such work and attempt to challenge the assumption that they are unwritable. The audience will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the draft during and after the presentation.
Paper Short Abstract:
Performance archives pose a key question: "What is a movement made of?" Step, sweat, accent, hand-to-hand experiences demand creative material transformations. My research examines a dance gathering that took place in 1944 in Palestine and how bodily movements that were preserved can be reenacted.
Paper Abstract:
The 1944 dance gathering at Kibbutz Dalia was a watershed moment in Hebrew physical culture, often considered the genesis of Israeli dance, and particularly Israeli folk dance, which would later emerge as a global phenomenon. This two-day event took place during the British Mandate of Palestine against the backdrop of the atrocities of the Holocaust.
The curators led mostly by women who had migrated from Europe, tried creating a diverse and creative space encouraging hybrid formats: Biblical ballet, German expressionism, Palestinian Dabke, along with Hassidic and Yemenite traditional performances. In order to follow this experimental spirit, along with the Archive/Performance delicate balance (Taylor, 2003), this event developed unique preservation practices. The question of archiving a step received different answers, beyond the 'face to face' act of performing in small groups (Ben Amos, 1971). In fact, the aim to encompass a physical event was one of the main achievements of the event leaders.
Eighty years later, the event's archival materials remain scattered across thirty different institutional and private collections, each one of them reflecting diverse claims over this cultural legacy. My paper examines physical documentation that has emerged from the event over the years, focusing on three distinct archival documentation forms of movement: folk-dance booklets (1947), Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation of Yemenite dances project (1972) and contemporary reenactments that I created during my research (2024). Through these forms, I explore the possibility of writing and unwriting historical narratives in order to keep the archive active, offering diverse narratives of specific dance-historical events.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper shows how popular music performers in archive interviews use different ways of music-making to transcend interview conventions. These transmodal performances are used to add complexity and width to their life histories but also come to question genre as well as archival categories.
Paper Abstract:
An archive for music and dance, such as Svenskt visarkiv (the Centre for Swedish Folk music and Jazz research), holds many examples of written, audio and video recordings documenting and transcribing sound, speech and movement. With changing documentation ideals and practices, that which is documented has been circumscribed in different ways, leaving different traces in both archive material and its organization. This paper focuses life history interviews with popular schlager singers carried out within the archive’s documentation activities. I will show how the singers transcend the spoken format of the interview at special points in their life histories, for example by using recorded music or singing. These examples of what I refer to as transmodal performance provide insight into the role of extraverbal layers as both expressive and rhetorical instruments. As archive records, they also pose questions to categories that are defined by performative and communicative modes.
Paper Short Abstract:
The paper seeks to analyse the often-overlooked visual aspects of handwritten and typescript folklore manuscripts. What are the collectors’ visual cues? From the perspective of visual ethnography, Latvian folklore collections from exile (created after World War II in Sweden, Germany, the US, Canada and other countries) will be highlighted and interpreted.
Paper Abstract:
In manuscript archives, the written texts undisputedly hold a hierarchically dominant position. In contrast, the visualities go overlooked quite often. Marginalia, ornamental vignettes, doodles, specifically chosen layout of the text, various colours of the letters, underlining and other graphic emphases of some words, cut-outs from the magazines, a blurry amateur photography, a transport or theatre ticket saved and pasted into the manuscript: these extra-textual shreds of evidence usually do not deserve much attention of archivists, unless they are of a clearly illustrative nature
Do the design, materiality, and visual elements of the manuscripts serve as forms of communication on their own? Through the lens of visual ethnography (Ali 2018, Pink 2021), the author will attempt to demonstrate and analyse how the visualities that accompany the written content may carry with them collectors’ sentiments, certain sensualities, and testimonies of one’s identity and values beyond words.
The sources of the study are the manuscripts of Archives of Latvian Folklore, in particular, the folklore collections created by Latvians in exile–in Sweden, Germany, the US, Canada, Australia and other countries (as a result of forced migration after World War II). The maintenance of national identity in exile motivated the dispersed Latvian community to collect, publish and research Latvian folklore away from their homeland. This shared ethos is demonstrated quite often in exile collections, and not just in words. A close reading and observation of these collections reveal both explicit and implicit meanings of the visualities noticed alongside texts.
Paper Short Abstract:
In my paper I would like to consider the problem of dealing with sensitive archives marked by violent practices, trying to reveal the complex and intricate contexts of contemporary research on visual documentation from the period of World War II. While discussing this problem I will refer to the source material from the German collection of the Sektion Rassen- und Volkstumsforschung Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit (Section on Races and Ethnicity of the Institute for German Work in the East, SRV/IDO), which were produced by its staff (Nazi anthropologists and ethnologists) during racial and ethnological research conducted in selected localities in occupied Poland between 1940-1943. Based on my studies on the SRV/IDO collection and own experiences from meetings with witnesses of history, who were subjected to German racial research, I will draw attention to the ambiguity of Nazi photographic documentation, showing on one hand its scientific value and, at the same time, its dehumanizing character and involvement in the criminal policies of the Third Reich.
Paper Abstract:
In my paper I would like to consider the problem of dealing with sensitive archives marked by violent practices, trying to reveal the complex and intricate contexts of contemporary research on visual documentation from the period of World War II. While discussing this problem I will refer to the source material from the German collection of the Sektion Rassen- und Volkstumsforschung Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit (Section on Races and Ethnicity of the Institute for German Work in the East, SRV/IDO), which were produced by its staff (Nazi anthropologists and ethnologists) during racial and ethnological research conducted in selected localities in occupied Poland between 1940-1943. Based on my studies on the SRV/IDO collection and own experiences from meetings with witnesses of history, who were subjected to German racial research, I will draw attention to the ambiguity of Nazi photographic documentation, showing on one hand its scientific value and, at the same time, its dehumanizing character and involvement in the criminal policies of the Third Reich.
In conclusion, I would like to consider ethical questions related to the ways in which archival materials tainted by the Nazi regime can be used in contemporary academic research and in the activities of public institutions tat collect 'depositions' of remembrance, such as museums.
Paper Short Abstract:
The planed contribution explores new modes of looking hat amateur movies by tying them to their emotional as well as material levels and by taking the relationship between the Austrian Movie Archive and the Database, where these movies are stored, into account.
Paper Abstract:
My research focuses on the Austrian Movie Archive and its vast collection of Amateur Movies. The Amateur Movie collection “Styria private” in itself counts more than 30.000 movies. Such a large collection often conveys to the viewer a sense of familiarity and cohesiveness.
The seemingly familiarity and cohesiveness of amateur movies is constructed through the common usage of scenes like birthdays, holidays, weddings and so on. Since the amateur movie was always closely tied to the genre of the family movie, the Austrian Movie Archive implied this association by using a specific data bank that squeezes the amateur movies in a clean-cut home movie genre without room for ambiguity and making amateur movies as a part of a genre. The databank is also a guiding point for the users of the archive. You are first made familiar with the data bank which contains various points of interest like significant historical events in contrast to the repetitive themes of the movies. But the seemingly mundane movies can establish relationships to the viewers as well by evoking emotions and memories. But rather than trying to paint a whole picture of the movies, which I would suggest is not even possible, I want to explore new perspectives.
Paper Short Abstract:
In this presentation, we will present the difficulties we encountered when creating the Latvian Pandemic Diary Collection, the advantages and disadvantages of the chosen dynamic digital archiving strategy, the conceptual solutions we created in the process of archiving various materials, as well as retrospectively, what could be better alternatives. The presentation touches on the broader issue of digital-born material and social network archiving through a case study.
Paper Abstract:
As the first wave of the pandemic unfolded and lockdowns were imposed in most parts of the world in March 2020, institutions carrying out the study, preservation, and dissemination of cultural heritage – such as museums, libraries, universities, archives, and research centres – launched a range of initiatives.
In the Archives of Latvian folklore, there the Latvian Pandemic Diary Collection was made. It was archived in the digital archive garamantas.lv. The collection is available at: https://garamantas.lv/en/collection/1415829/Pandemijas-dienasgramatas-2020. It was initiated through an open-call crowdsourcing initiative to collect people’s recordings of their personal thoughts and emotional responses in this period of profound change and uncertainty. Methodologically, the project employed a versatile rapid-response crowdsourcing framework and dynamic digital archiving strategy, coupled with an intense outreach and social media campaign to encourage diary submissions.
In building this collection, we faced many unprecedented challenges. Firstly, the strategy for collecting the material had changed, material could not only be submitted, but also tagged with hashtags on social media posts. Secondly, given that most of these entries were digital born material, they also featured many internet attributes: the use of emoji, hyperlinks, references to others, in some cases even discussions and entire feeds. Many texts were also accompanied by additional material: photographs, drawings, music, and videos. In order not to lose the evidence of this era, our digital archive had to adapt both conceptually and technically. The presentation touches on the broader issue of digital-born material and social network archiving through a case study.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper examines the Finno-Karelian tradition of healing incantations through the prism of corporeality. What can we say about the bodies and their performance based on the archival written record?
Paper Abstract:
Incantations were commonly used to heal wounds and cure diseases throughout the 19th century in North Karelia. A great number of incantatory texts have been collected by folklorists, due to the importance of mythological figures and motives in them. Many of those have later been archived and published by the Finnish Literature Society.
The prime concern of the healing incantatory practice was the well-being of the human body. A ritual specialist, the tietäjä, would communicate with non-human agents and interact with their patient during the healing ritual. Most of the collected texts are representations of its verbal part, and information about the physical performance is relatively scarce.
In this paper, I propose a methodological exploration of the corporeality of archived incantations. Relying on phenomenology of the body and linguistic theories of enunciation, I examine the traces left by the bodily performance in written texts. I am especially interested in the ways the incantator comments on their own performance, actions, and gestures, and how their voice is constructed in the texts. My analysis is based on a corpus of around 400 healing incantations collected in the parish of Ilomantsi between 1816 and 1939 and published in the SKVR corpus.