150 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 11 INTRODUCTION The chapter relates to an ongoing collaboration between the author as a visual anthropologist and lecturer in creative media production, and the Oxford-based historical anthropologist, Wendy James. This work, which has been proceeding on an intermittent basis over the past ten years, explores new possibilities for the use of interactive digital media in the communication of anthropological ideas and arguments. The work sits alongside James’ writings on her long-term fieldwork in the Judith Aston University of the West of England, UK Database Narrative, Spatial Montage, and the Cultural Transmission of Memory: An Anthropological Perspective ABSTRACT This chapter discusses ways in which the database narrative techniques of virtual media can be used to explore the relationship between real-world oral storytelling and embodied performance in the cultural transmission of memory. It is based on an ongoing collaboration between the author and the historical anthropologist, Wendy James, to develop a multilayered associative narrative, which considers relation- ships between experience, event, and memory among a displaced community. The work is based on a substantial living archive of photographs, audio, cine, and video recordings collected by Wendy James in the Sudan/Ethiopian borderlands from the mid-1960s to the present day. Its critical context relates to the ‘sensory turn’ in anthropology and to ‘beyond text’ debates within the arts and humanities regarding ways in which we can capture and represent the sensory experiences of the past. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2961-5.ch011