A labour of love: the affective archives of popular music culture
Author(s)
Long, Paul
Baker, Sarah
Istvandity, Lauren
Collins, Jez
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2017
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This paper outlines the prodigious field of public history preservation practice prompted by popular music culture, exploring the relationship of affect, history and the archive. Framing this exploration with a concept of cultural justice, it considers the still uncertain place of popular music as a subject of heritage and preservation, assessing the parameters of what counts as an archive and issues of democratization. It offers a discussion of the archival and affective turns in the humanities as a means of framing the politics of practice focused on popular music culture. The paper offers empirical evidence of the relational ...
View more >This paper outlines the prodigious field of public history preservation practice prompted by popular music culture, exploring the relationship of affect, history and the archive. Framing this exploration with a concept of cultural justice, it considers the still uncertain place of popular music as a subject of heritage and preservation, assessing the parameters of what counts as an archive and issues of democratization. It offers a discussion of the archival and affective turns in the humanities as a means of framing the politics of practice focused on popular music culture. The paper offers empirical evidence of the relational qualities of the popular music archive considered in affective terms. Discussion draws first on evidence from the vernacular practices of communities in what Baker and Collins describe as ‘do-it-yourself’ archives and secondly from ‘authorized’ collections in established archival institutions (Baker and Collins, “Sustaining Popular Music’s Material Culture,” 3). The paper explores the motivations of popular music archivists and how they articulate the affective dimensions of their work, and how their work qualifies personal and collective commitments and expressions of value and indeed, relations with users. In conclusion, affect is identified as pertinent to wider issues in the relations of archive, archivist and user and the possibilities of historical practice.
View less >
View more >This paper outlines the prodigious field of public history preservation practice prompted by popular music culture, exploring the relationship of affect, history and the archive. Framing this exploration with a concept of cultural justice, it considers the still uncertain place of popular music as a subject of heritage and preservation, assessing the parameters of what counts as an archive and issues of democratization. It offers a discussion of the archival and affective turns in the humanities as a means of framing the politics of practice focused on popular music culture. The paper offers empirical evidence of the relational qualities of the popular music archive considered in affective terms. Discussion draws first on evidence from the vernacular practices of communities in what Baker and Collins describe as ‘do-it-yourself’ archives and secondly from ‘authorized’ collections in established archival institutions (Baker and Collins, “Sustaining Popular Music’s Material Culture,” 3). The paper explores the motivations of popular music archivists and how they articulate the affective dimensions of their work, and how their work qualifies personal and collective commitments and expressions of value and indeed, relations with users. In conclusion, affect is identified as pertinent to wider issues in the relations of archive, archivist and user and the possibilities of historical practice.
View less >
Journal Title
Archives and Records
Volume
38
Issue
1
Subject
Heritage, archive and museum studies