Collecting and Connecting: Archiving Filipino American Music i Published on Ethnomusicology Review (https://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu) Collecting and Connecting: Archiving Filipino American Music in Los Angeles By Jesse Ruskin - University of California, Los Angeles Biography Jesse Ruskin is an M.A. student in ethnomusicology at UCLA, focusing on West African and African American music. Abstract Scholars have recently reconceptualized the archive not only as a repository of knowledge, but also as an active producer and arbiter of knowledge. The study of archives, from this perspective, must attend to processes as well as products. This paper examines UCLA’s Archiving Filipino American Music in Los Angeles (AFAMILA) project as a case study of collaborative archiving, from the perspective that both methodology, the strategies and practices of collecting, and musical content, the sounds collected, determine the meaning of music archives. Furthermore, the study seeks to demonstrate how the collaborative approach, with its emphasis on dialogue and exchange, subverts the discourses of power that have historically shaped music archiving. Introduction Scholars from a variety of fields have reconceptualized the archive not only as a source of knowledge, but also as a site where knowledge is produced and negotiated. From this perspective, archives are seen as dynamic places, where memory is created, contested, recovered, and reinterpreted. 2 Ann Laura Stoler, for example, in her study of the colonial archive, argues for a focus on “archiving as a process rather than…archives as things” and examines the ways in which discourses of power shape the form and content of archives (2002:83). And Daniel Reed (2004) suggests that archives embody not only cultural and family memories, but also “disciplinary memories—the methodological and intellectual histories of ethnographic disciplines.” Thus, the study of archives requires attention not only to the objects collected, but also to the methods of collection and the discourses that speak through the collection. Archiving Filipino American Music in Los Angeles (AFAMILA), a project developed by the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive [1] in partnership with Kayamanan Ng Lahi Philippine Folk Arts (KNL) [2], was implemented in 2003 with the goal of documenting a year in the musical life of Filipino Americans in Los Angeles. Through this effort, the Archive sought both to expand its collection and to bridge the gap between the university and the wider Los Angeles community. This paper examines the AFAMILA project as a case study of collaborative archiving, from the perspective that both methodology, the strategies and practices of collecting, and musical content, the sounds collected, determine the meaning of archival collections. The study begins with an examination of the problems of technological mediation and the historical development of music archives, with attention to the discourses of power that have shaped them. I then review the AFAMILA project and its collection with an eye toward what was documented and how it was collected, as well as its expansion into the online environment. Furthermore, this paper seeks to demonstrate how the collaborative approach, with its focus on “mutuality and reciprocity” (Sheriff, et al. 2002), subverts the discourses of power that have historically shaped music archiving. Technology, power, and social responsibility The history of ethnomusicology, as Rene Lysloff (1997:209) points out, is closely tied to the history of sound recording. Underpinning this parallel development are three related discourses of power: technological superiority, intellectual authority, and scientific objectivity. With its early focus on the science and salvage of music, ethnomusicology relied heavily on the extraction of sounds from sources as it was made possible by recording technology. Lysloff argues that such practices of objectification are linked to Western assumptions of technological privilege, and that the separation of sound from source and the alienation of the researched from the researcher are exercises of power enabled by technology: Ethnomusicology Review | ISSN 2164-4578 | © 2021 by Ethnomusicology Review. Individual articles are the copyright of their authors. | emreview@ucla.edu Page 1 of 7