Project Description
Project Description Page
Documentary Focus: This focus of this project exhibit is to present the ethnographic research from the dissertation Kinetic Conversations: Creative Dance-music Performance and the Negotiation of Identity in Contemporary Havana, Cuba, to introduce the general public to Afrocuban folklore, and to present the research to interested members of the community of musical listeners interested in Afrocuban folklore. The community of listeners of Afrocuban folklore is a complex community including the performers and participants in Cuba and outside of Cuba. The site takes the argument of the dissertation and its chapter structure and simplifies it to present the main performers, the dance-music genres, the historical context, and the central organizing concept of the dissertation, kinetic conversation.
Consideration of archival concepts and practices: This project draws on four key issues in archival theory. The first is the issue of digital archives. This archive is made predominantly of born digital records that made during the course of fieldwork. Conway observes that “digital archives require new conceptual tools” (Conway 2015). This archive demonstrates that in several ways. One is that from the group of records, new digital records have been produced (i.e. screen shots in some cases) in order to better represent the collection in this format. Another way that analog archival concepts do not fit the digital is that in this exhibit users can move through the collection in any order they choose, except for the dedicated landing page there is not fixed order. The second key concept here is the role of the archivist as a documenter of society. Ham argues that “documenting culture should be the archivist’s prime mission” (Ham quoted in Foscarini 2017). In this case, the archivist and the collector are the same person. Ethnographic documentation of performance was the purpose and goal of the archive. The third key archival concept is the role of the archive as a site of contested power and traditional knowledge. This exhibit presents a highly historicized view of Afrocuabn folklore, especially in the text presented on the “Folklore in Cuba” page. Furthermore, it focuses on the individual performers and the role of folklore in their everyday lives. While the musical interpretations grow out of standard modes of performance, the contextualization and interpretation are shaped into different ways of understanding and approaching the material. They depart from the nationalism of Cuban scholars, from the Africanist interpretations of American scholars and music fans. Instead, this archive tries to counter some of the essentializing tendencies of theses traditions of scholarship and pose a critical lens through which to listen and view the performances. The fourth key concept is the concept of the archive as a collaboration between communities and archivists. The materials were largely created in collaboration with ethnographic consultants. The interpretation and theorization, however, is largely mine, but responds to issues observed, discussed, and learned through the ethnographic process. Given sufficient time, I would make the site bi-lingual in English and Spanish because this would make it available to the consultants and to others (inside and outside of Cuba) knowledgeable about the dance-music and issues contained.
Criteria for record selection: Records were selected for their ability to represent the condensed and summarized argument of the dissertation. There were limitations of time in terms of what I would have wished to include, whcih required more processing and also what I had access to.
Target User Group: The community is primarily one of musical listeners who know Afrocuban folklore. That includes the performers, fans and aficionados of Afrocuban folklore in the US and Europe, and the interested general public. This was a good experience for re-writing the dissertation for a general audience.
Perspectives: The perspectives represented here are more and less debatable. The historical context and interpretations are the more debatable elements in the exhibition. The musical elements, while deriving from a community for whom debate is part of the practice of folklore, are less debatable, in the sense that they represnt a perspective on the material shared and accepted by many performers.