What inspires me

Repatriating cultural heritage materials to communities of origin

Background

As archivist for the UW Ethnomusicology Archives, I steward over 50,000 unique recordings that document global, regional, and local musical expressions. Much of this work revolves around access, preservation, and repatriation. As UW faculty, I offer a mix of courses in such programs as Honors, Cinema and Media Studies, and Ethnomusicology. Before coming to UW, I was archivist at the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive (2002-2006), where I helped lead community archiving projects and that institution’s first sound recording repatriation grant.

Specializations

Archives, digitization, sound/video/film, repatriation

Publications

2019. Lorraine Sakata, Laurel Sercombe, John Vallier. “Radio Afghanistan Archive Project: Building Capacity, Averting Repatriation.” The Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation. Edited by Frank Gunderson, Robert C. Lancefield, and Bret Woods. Oxford University Press.

2018. John Vallier “Preserving the Past, Activating the Future: Collaborative Archiving in Ethnomusicology.” Ethnomusicology: A contemporary reader. Volume II. Edited by Jennifer Post. Routledge.