History, Memory and Music: The Repatriation of Digital Audio to Yolngu Communities or Memory as Metadata

dc.contributor.authorToner, Peter
dc.coverage.spatialSydney Australia
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-13T22:50:38Z
dc.date.available2015-12-13T22:50:38Z
dc.date.createdSeptember 30 2004
dc.date.issued2004
dc.date.updated2015-12-11T10:41:40Z
dc.description.abstractMetadata, as is well known, is data about data. It is certainly possible to develop a much more elaborate definition, and others are in a much better position to do so than I am. For my purposes, I would like to strip back the definition of metadata to its essential core, and that is data about data. In particular, though, I have two kinds of data in mind. The reference data are digitized audio recordings made in northeast Arnhem Land between the mid-1920s and the early 1980s—but they could in practice be any kind of digitized cultural heritage. The metadata which refer to these recordings are people’s memories—memories about the singers, about the ethnomusicologists or anthropologists who produced them, about the recording sessions, or about the musical past more generally. In my research I have always been interested in memory, and its contrasts with history, but to think of memory as metadata is an important way of linking the concerns of Yolngu traditional owners with those of archivists, and to foreground the prospects and challenges of repatriation in a digital age. I should acknowledge from the outset that thinking of memory as metadata has been partially inspired by the “Software Tools for Indigenous Knowledge Management” developed by Jane Hunter and her colleagues at DSTC. If memory was always a key interest in this research, it was the idea of metadata annotations of the kind developed by DSTC being attached to digital objects that has clarified the link between memory and the digital domain—although the issues for Yolngu custodians have yet to be worked out (http://www.archimuse.com/mw2003/papers/hunter/hunter.html)en_AU
dc.description.versionThis paper was originally published online as a refereed conference paper through Open Conference Systems by the University of Sydney, Faculty of Arts in 2004en_AU
dc.identifier.citationToner, Peter G. “History, Memory and Music: The Repatriation of Digital Audio to Yolngu Communities, or, Memory as Metadata”. Researchers, Communities, institutions, Sound Recordings, eds. Linda Barwick, Allan Marett, Jane Simpson and Amanda Harris. Sydney: University of Sydney, 2003.en_AU
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/80879
dc.publisherPacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures
dc.relation.ispartofResearchers, Communities, Institutions and Sound Recordingsen_AU
dc.relation.ispartofseriesPacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures
dc.source.urihttps://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/1518/1/Toner%20rev1.pdf
dc.titleHistory, Memory and Music: The Repatriation of Digital Audio to Yolngu Communities or Memory as Metadata
dc.typeConference paper
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Accessen_AU
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage9
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage1
local.contributor.affiliationToner, Peter, College of Arts and Social Sciences, ANU
local.contributor.authoremailrepository.admin@anu.edu.au
local.contributor.authoruidToner, Peter, u9804939
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.description.refereedYes
local.identifier.absfor190409 - Musicology and Ethnomusicology
local.identifier.ariespublicationMigratedxPub9178
local.identifier.uidSubmittedByMigrated
local.type.statusPublished Version

Downloads

Original bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Toner rev1.pdf
Size:
343.16 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Back to topicon-arrow-up-solid
 
APRU
IARU
 
edX
Group of Eight Member

Acknowledgement of Country

The Australian National University acknowledges, celebrates and pays our respects to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people of the Canberra region and to all First Nations Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and work, and whose cultures are among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.


Contact ANUCopyrightDisclaimerPrivacyFreedom of Information

+61 2 6125 5111 The Australian National University, Canberra

TEQSA Provider ID: PRV12002 (Australian University) CRICOS Provider Code: 00120C ABN: 52 234 063 906