Abstract
The article concerns the role of sound archives and the use of sound recordings in ethnographic research. The first part presents a discussion of the impact of the invention of the phonograph in ethnographic research and investigates the different meanings attributed to phonographic archives by anthropology and ethnomusicology. The second part is a research report about Luiz Heitor Corrêa de Azevedo's phonographic collection, produced between 1942 and 1944, during his ethnographic trip to the states of Goiás, Ceará and Minas Gerais. Using Luiz Heitor's research as a case study, the article addresses the rationale and methodology behind projects of phonographic documentation in the 1940s as well as the different meanings attributed to Luiz Heitor's phonograms when they circulate in non-academic contexts.
Keywords Phonograms; sound archives; ethnography; folkore; Luiz Heitor Corrêa de Azevedo