Music, empire, colonialism: sounding the archives

Abstract

The ‘ sounds ’ and ‘ silences ’ of the colonial archive have long intrigued scholars. Postco-lonial academics, of course, have intensely explored the nuances of archival fragmentation and the ethical issues of archival silencing, and are increasingly applying such questions to decolonial and other interrogative contexts of the twenty-fi rst century. 1 But there is still more to be said about aural sensibilities and their untapped potential for and after the archive. Coming to this special issue from the vantage point of historical musicology – as scholars of music, power and practice who are interested in the impacts and legacies of the British empire from the long nineteenth century through to the inter-war and post-war worlds of the twentieth – we are speci fi cally concerned with how renewed attention to the ‘ sounding ’ of colonial archives may expose, problematize, complicate and indeed resonate with, rising conversations about what might unfold next, archivally, beyond the ‘ archive proper ’ . 2 To this end, we suggest that historical musicol-ogy can provide a creative, if at times frustratingly elusive, arena of enquiry for highlighting the ambiguity of archiving: for through the record-keeping of empire, issues of race, gender and authority were intrinsically but also messily inscribed into decisions about who was represented, who was silenced and who was (un)heard. 3 As a starting point: let us begin with the question of how to study archival silence through the lens of a fi eld historically obsessed with sound . The disciplining ‘ hush ’ of the archive is a void that scholars are becoming ever more anxious to fi ll, and yet, as Saidiya Hartman reminds us, the voyeuristic act of attempting to resurrect and ‘ give voice ’ to the lost archive is problematic in itself, often reinforcing acts of neo-imperial-ism. 4 In light of increasing pressures to have