IASA 2018 Annual Conference

Captain Robert Sutherland Rattray (1881-1938) studied anthropology at Oxford. He spent many years studying the Ashanti. He became District Governor for the Ejura region of Ashanti in 1911 and head of the Anthropological Department of Asante in 1921. As part of that role he made roughly 35 brown wax cylinder recordings in the area in 1922, representing some of the earliest recordings from West Africa and certainly the first explorations of the so-called 'talking drum', or surrogate speech in which the drum is used to convey speech in the form of messages and literature. The British Library has digitised these wax cylinders and at this conference is bringing digital copies to the Institute of African Studies where they will be made available for study. This paper will explore the broader theoretical and methodological context within which such 'reconnection' activities are undertaken as well as the potential impact they can have on local and international knowledge exchange.