Repatriation and innovation in and out of the field: the impact of legacy recordings on endangered dance-song traditions and ethnomusicological research

Abstract

Over the last decade, ethnomusicologists have increasingly become preoccupied with the repatriation of records of songs and dances to communities of origin for a range of reasons that have been summarised elsewhere (see Treloyn and Emberly 2013; Treloyn, Charles and Nulgit 2013). In Australia, the return and dissemination of audio and video recordings from archival and personal collections to cultural heritage communities has emerged as a primary, and almost ubiquitous, fieldwork method.