Language documentation and revitalization among the Siona of the Putumayo, Colombia: the potential of digitization for the social life of ethnographic material

Abstract

This paper discusses an ongoing project of documentation and language revitalization among the Siona of the Putumayo, Colombia, and evaluates the potential of the return of audio recordings from the 1970s in digital format. Recognition of the potential of this material has been mixed and raises complex questions about the limits and benefits of modern technology to preserve the social life of oral literature. Local social and political organization and the politics of cultural survival determine how the material is perceived and possibilities of collaboration. Finally, the paper examines the differences between indigenous expectations of audio recordings and those of the anthropologist, indicating that digitization fixes, decontextualizes and recontextualizes oral literature within the current political context in which indigenous peoples seek to identify cultural patrimony in defense of their rights. [Key words: Siona