While not perhaps the intended argument of the authors, one of my main takeaways from this article was affirmation that other researchers come up against a similar dilemma which is the desire to hoard research materials but the lack of desire to formally and systematically archive the assets. Using their experience with material collected in Zambia, the authors lift up multimodal installations as an opportunity to renew and reinvigorate archival assets and create a multisensory experience that increases opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and not only understanding tensions that arise within the archive but experiencing them firsthand.
I think many of the concepts and ideas in this article apply broadly to the theory and practice of archival ethnography. Again, this article builds on previous assigned readings, and raises more questions and considerations for archival ethnography than perhaps offers concrete guidelines for archiving anthropological assets. One of the assertions of this article that I found especially compelling was that an archive is never finished/fixed, that an archive is both alive and “haunted” through creation, immersion, new questions, and dispersal. The authors introduced the term “multi-inhabited” to describe how archives are animated and spirited, never embodying a single-voiced or single-bodied. And that even the singular “body” of an archive may defy its intended purpose and gives way to many experiences and voices. Additionally, the use of multimodal techniques in archival installations may invigorate the archive, body of work, and assets by lifting tensions and reaching a broader audience.