Recomposing the archive? On sound and (hi)story in Damara / ǂNūkhoe pasts, from Basel to west Namibia

We explore interconnected texts in a ‘coloniser archive’ of stories, songs and historic narratives in Khoekhoegowab, recorded by German linguist Ernst Dammann and his wife Ruth in Namibia in 1953-1954 and housed in Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Switzerland. We outline the ‘re-ordering’ strategy enabling us to ‘release’ information caught by the Dammanns, and work towards culturally contextualised understandings of the pasts spoken of by their interviewees. We engage with a specific recording as a multivalent object prompting recall of both autobiographical and cultural/collective memory, sharing an initial recomposition of a song from this recording as an initiative to amplify its content and reach through a contemporary mix drawing on electronic music-making possibilities. We close by reflecting briefly on pragmatic copyright issues arising through this reworking of the archived Dammann recordings.