Singing with things in ethnographic museum's archives: the reunification of material/immaterial units as part of an engaged ethnomusicology

Matthias Lewy

Authors

Matthias Lewy University of Brasilia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2529-8507

Keywords:

Indigenous Music, Material/Immaterial Culture, Museum, Engaged Ethnomusicology

Abstract

This articles shows in a first step how the separation of ontological units of material and immaterial entities were destroyed by the colonial collection practice. Therefore, the idea of an “collective” (Descola 2013) as a notion extension of culture is used, including ontologically relevant human and nonhuman interactions. In a second step, recent projects are presented showing what collective thinking means when dealing with interactions between “cultures of origin” and European ethnographic museums. Furthermore, results from my long-term project realized with the AreTauKa Pemón indigenous people (Venezuela/Brazil/Guyana) and the ongoing cooperation with the “sharing knowledge” project of the Ethnographic Museum Berlin Dahlem are discussed, aiming to reveal ideas and strategies to reunite relevant entities of sound and physical objects as ontological units

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Author Biography

Matthias Lewy, University of Brasilia

Dr, currently postdoc research fellow and lecturer at Universidade de Brasília (UnB), Lecturer at several universities in Germany in ethnomusicology (Universität Halle-Wittenberg), cultural anthropology (Freie Universität Berlin, Universität Bonn, Philipps-Universität Marburg), popular music studies (Humboldt University Berlin) and cultural administration (Europa Universität Frankfurt/Oder). Co-editor of “El oído pensante” (since 2014), guest editor of “Música em contexto” (2017). He recently published the book “Sudamérica y sus mundos audibles: cosmologías y prácticas sonoras de los pueblos indígenas” with Bernd Brabec de Mori and Miguel García.