As part of my fieldwork into sonic archives in post-revolutionary Tunis, I tried to access sites of state archiving, including the archive of the National Radio, and that of the National Phonothèque. On both occasions, I was directed by employees of these institutions towards a book: Initiation à la Musique Tunisienne. Published in 2004, the book amounts to a set of transcribed radio broadcasts from the 1950s, during which musicologist Manoubi Snoussi lectured listeners on the theoretical principles of ‘Classical’ Tunisian music. Why, in 2019, was this book considered so important for a Western researcher to read? What is its relationship to the state sonic archives that I was trying to access?

In this presentation, I’ll explore meanings and significances of the state sound archives in the post-revolutionary environment of Tunis. I’ll suggest that the aforementioned book is one of multiple media objects through which the state archive is scattered in the contemporary city. Whilst its politics seems initially to be at odds with newer post-revolutionary initiatives within state institutions – such as the new radio station Panorama, which states that its mission is to promote the popular music of marginalised regions – I’ll suggest that both phenomena actually maintain a similar relationship with the ‘aural public sphere’ (Ochoa, 2006). Both render certain sounds ‘modern’ and others ‘vulgar’, and draw legitimacy from the notion of a special relationship with material records that are recorded and housed in state institutions. I’ll finish by exploring some ways in which the status of the official archive is undermined in the city – by the very infrastructures through which it is mediated. The presentation aims to open up questions on sonic modernity, its archives, and its relationship with differently positioned listeners (including the researcher).