Archives, Objects, and the Global History of Music
Abstract
This article addresses the importance of developing archival approaches and perspectives that could have democratizing implications for the research and teaching of global music history. This work suggests that the politics of the traditional music archive necessitate broader considerations of what might serve as evidence when conducting global music research. Rao’s reflections are based on a workshop on archival objects related to Chinese theaters and the life of Chinese Americans in early twentieth-century America that she conducted at the University of British Columbia and her research for the book Chinatown Opera Theater in North America. This article suggests how bringing students to the archives, showing them objects directly related to narratives that shape our understanding of the globality of the past, and asking them to examine the materiality of these objects can help them understand historically peripheralized communities that should nevertheless be included in the scope of global music history today.
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