Relational returns: Relationships and the repatriation of legacy song recordings in Australia

In this article we focus on how repatriation is perceived, enacted and understood by custodians of living performance traditions in the north and north-west of Australia. We observe a relational turn in intercultural research collaborations around Aboriginal Australian song: one that enfolds our personal relationships with Indigenous collaborators, those of past researchers and singers, and past and present archivists and archives. In imagining a future in which recordings are recirculated among a new generation of performers and used to support the vitality of these Indigenous Australian song traditions, we suggest that, alongside technical considerations concerning new systems for archiving and dissemination, a consideration for the relationships and exchanges that brought recordings into being will also be necessary.