In May 2019, RILM partnered with the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology (ARCE) at the American Institute of Indian Studies in Gurugram, India. ARCE is dedicated to supporting ethnomusicology and the performing arts in India through its diverse resources, including archival collections, library assets, and field research. The center prioritizes ethical standards and Indian copyright legislation while utilizing advanced technologies to preserve recorded performances for scholarship and creativity. ARCE’s archives currently house over 270 collections of field recordings and approximately 10,000 books, along with journals and newspaper cuttings. A key aspect of their mission is the repatriation of collections from abroad, ensuring that Indian scholars and institutions have access to vital materials. This repository not only enhances the study of ethnomusicology but also plays a crucial role in safeguarding India’s intangible cultural heritage for generations to come.
In addition to preservation efforts, ARCE actively conducts their own fieldwork to foster direct relationships with artist communities. Notable initiatives include the Archives and Community Partnership project, funded by the Ford Foundation, which explored the diverse traditions of folk musicians in Western Rajasthan, as well as researching musical communities of Goa. ARCE has also contributed recordings to the Global Sound project by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, a digital archive launched in 2005 by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Each of these projects has enabled ARCE to better understand what Indian artist communities seek from the archive.
ARCE was founded in 1982 by the ethnomusicologist Nazir Jairazbhoy (1927-2009) out of a belief in the need for an ethnomusicological archive in India, particularly one dedicated to preserving recordings of Indian music. During the 1970s and 1980s, a number of foreign scholars conducted research and made recordings throughout India. However, when these scholars returned to their home countries after completing their research, their recordings often left India with them. Jairazbhoy envisioned ARCE as a place where researchers could deposit their recordings so that they could be preserved and made available for future study. Initially, the archive operated from two locations, in Delhi and Pune. In 1985, the collections were consolidated in Delhi, and around 1998, a new location was established in Gurugram. Beyond preserving recordings of Indian music, ARCE promoted and supported the development of ethnomusicological research and study in India.
Four years after ARCE was established, Shuba Chaudhuri was appointed as its director. Formally trained as a linguist, Chaudhuri describes her entry into ethnomusicology as having “stumbled into the field . . . through learning by the seat of [my] pants”. Her training as an archivist was similarly informal. She observes that there is very little formal training available in the archival profession, noting that “in many archives, you’ll find people who are not formally trained.” Apart from visual archiving, she explains, there are few established avenues for professional training. As a result, Chaudhuri has often found herself in the position of training others. After becoming ARCE’s director, she visited major archives throughout Europe and the United States, established relationships with archivists, and became active in the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA). As she reflects, this learning experience was “about as formal as it gets in this field.”
ARCE’s collaboration with RILM grew out of ongoing conversations between Chaudhuri and RILM Executive Editor Zdravko Blažeković at the annual meetings of the International Council for Traditional Music and Dance (ICTMD), where Blažeković frequently emphasized the need for better documentation of Indian records. At one point, Chaudhuri suggested that, if funding could be secured, she could hire a student to assist with entering RILM records from ARCE’s library collections. RILM provided the necessary financial support, enabling the project to begin. Initially, many members of the ARCE team were unfamiliar with RILM, but newer staff members brought greater knowledge of RILM’s resources and helped strengthen the partnership.
According to Chaudhuri, the collaboration has been mutually beneficial: ARCE has been able to access and incorporate RILM records into its own systems, enhancing the visibility and prestige of the archive, while also introducing RILM’s mission and resources to a wider audience in India and beyond. The ARCE library’s extensive collection of materials in Indian regional languages is particularly valuable to RILM Abstracts, as its inclusion helps stimulate musicological research in India and encourages scholars to engage with local scholarship that might otherwise remain overlooked. Earlier contributions from team members such as Sagnik Atarthi, who sought out historical Indian journals, have also significantly expanded the collection, bringing to light a wide range of materials and topics that deepen our understanding of musicological scholarship in India.
This post is based on an interview conducted with ARCE director Shuba Chauduri on 3 September 2026.
