What concepts, ideas and examples from this text contribute to the theory and practice of archive ethnography?
In particular, I liked this quote from the piece, “In order to truly have the archive speak for itself, it should be made to speak for itself” (Vivaldi & Phillips, p. 75). I found this line to be provocative in terms of how Vivaldi and Phillips demonstrate that ethnographic materials collected through fieldwork not only serve as reflections of a memory—specific moments in time—but can be reshaped and reimagined to say something about the present, that can inspire or create memories for contemporary publics. Archives do not necessarily have to be static materials that leave the speaking to others (e.g. scholarly interpretation via academic publications), but through active arrangement like that of an installation, an archive can “speak for itself.”
What is the main argument, narrative, or e/affect?
In this piece, Vidali & Phillips struggle with what seems to be a common theme in archive ethnography, how to bring to life an archive from countless hours of fieldnotes and collected materials? As the authors note, anthropologists often have hundreds of hours of recordings, images, fieldnotes, documents, and other collected materials produced through their ethnographic fieldwork. Yet, what to do with these materials and whether or how to archive them is often a difficult undertaking, and like Vivaldi and Phillips point out, an endeavor that continues to be undervalued and polemical within the field of anthropology. Scholars who would like to pursue this work, must think critically about “the ethical dimensions of consent, respect, ownership, stewardship, legacy, and propriety” in relation to creatively using ethnographic collections to construct archives and build artistic installations (p. 72). Overall, Vidali & Phillips’ work in building a remix and artistic installation from years of Zambian radio fieldwork, demonstrates one of many ways to repurpose ethnographic materials to recreate memories and spaces in time for a public audience, allowing both the researchers and the public audience to actively engage with such materials on their own terms.