“Copy Debts”?: —Towards a Cultural Model for Researchers’ Accountability in an Age of Web Democracy

The highly standardized oral narrative about Sunjata, nowadays known as the Sunjata Epic, has been governing society since—at least—the fourteenth century when Arab travel writer Ibn Battuta on a trip along the Niger River reported a Sunjata tradition. This epic tells about the foundation of society—called “Mali” or “Mande”—and expresses values that go beyond the borders of countries: it explains the relationships among clans. It also prescribes how, based on patronymics and clan-related praise songs, every person should behave in public. The epic is also now much esteemed as Mali and Guinea’s medieval history and as a national and supranational charter, maintaining prominence both in the mass media and in educational programs (cf. Bulman 2004; Adejunmobi 2011). The name “Mali” itself, which in 1960 became the official designation for the territory, is definitely the most striking example of this heightened status of the Sunjata Epic. 2 Several villages in Mali and Guinea have families living there that have much prestige because of their knowledge of the Sunjata Epic. In Mali, the Diabate family from Kela are among the most authoritative interpreters of the Sunjata Epic (cf. Austen 1999; Jansen 2001). I use the case presented in this article—about a Sunjata Epic recording in Kela and the discussions of ownership that the recording raised—to argue that researchers whose work deals with such an intangible heritage may have to reposition themselves. They must work from a radically different perspective than the one behind the usual discourse, which is based on concepts of permission/ approval, individual author rights, and informed consent. A new attitude, based on the idea of “copy debts,” may meet the local deep concerns and unexpected claims that underlie a