Conference Agenda

ILAM has been engaged in digital return since around 2014. The process has opened up questions of ownership, access and knowledge. This has been of particular importance with regard to Hugh Tracey’s metadata, which was often erroneous, and his cataloguing system, which was adopted from western practices without critical reflection, and with the exclusion of the performers. The process has also brought to attention the one-sided approach to digital return, such that while recordings were returned to so-called communities of origin there were very few attempts to obtain feedback from these communities after the return.

In this presentation, I focus on one such community in Grahamstown, the place where ILAM is based. I describe how digital return unfolded and the processes by which attempts were made to involve the community in reviving an interest in the music. Hugh Tracey made a large number of recordings of the amaXhosa in the 1950s. Since around 8 years ago, we started returning these recordings to local DJs and other artists. I address in this presentation the negotiations and the outcomes of what occurs when a new generation of artists are involved in a dialogical process of digital return where their voices matter. How, I ask, can digital return restore relations with a new generation of musicians and artists for whom the power to engage with such content is critical?

De nos jours, il faut reconnaitre que nos instruments de musique avaient pour objectifs, en plus de la production sonore, d’autres rôles purement fonctionnels. A l’ère de la mondialisation, où le culturel et le capital font bon ménage, les décideurs et investisseurs africains se doivent de repenser une nouvelle vision dans l’exploitation et l’utilisation de nos instruments de musique traditionnels tout en restants vigilants de la sauvegarde de nos identités culturelles que charrient ces objets sonores. Alors, quelles stratégies adoptées pour aller vers la standardisation de certains instruments de musique traditionnels africains ? Si nous regardons derrière nous, nous constatons que la plus part des instruments modernes hérités proviennent de traditions parfois plus récentes que celles de nos instruments. La présente communication est de faite l’état des lieux de la question et de faire une analyser sur les enjeux socio-économiques pour permettre à nos décideurs de mieux se pencher sur la question.

Choro, one of Brazil’s oldest urban musical genres, was recognized as cultural heritage in 2024, following an intense data collection process (2020–2023). This effort resulted in the creation of the Base de dados Choro Patrimônio (Choro Heritage Database) structured on the open-source Tainacan Platform, offering online access and featuring a collaborative nature. This paper demonstrates the crucial role of digital and collaborative databases as effective safeguarding actions for Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH);

The adoption of Information and Communication Technologies is recognized as a valuable tool to preserve, disseminate, and teach about ICH, including traditional music and dances, aligning with the Intelligent Heritage Management paradigm. However, systematic literature reviews show that the implementation of technological solutions is highly skewed: between 2018 and 2022, 92% of interventions focused on tangible heritage, with ICH representing only 5% of applicationsThe Choro Heritage Database, which maps collections, performance venues, teaching actions, and collectives, directly addresses this research and application gap.

This initiative is particularly vital in the Brazilian context, where memory institutions often exhibit fragmented actions and a lack of standardization and integration for the reuse of cultural data, despite the growing importance of digital transformation. The Database's collaborative and continuously maintained structure strengthens the research and dissemination ecosystem for Choro, proving the effectiveness of open digital platforms in cultural preservation. This analysis of this initiative utilizes the concept of Data Objects [Alaimo (2022); Kallinikos et al,(2010)] and the debate on digital integration within Brazilian memory institutions [Martins et al. (2023); Rocha (2025)].