How should we approach and listen to sound archives? What ideologies, discourses and power hierarchies are hidden behind the sound archives? What ethical questions should be taken into account when dealing with different sound archives? Recently, sound archives have been put "under suspicion", challenging the imperial acoustic archive's "insistence on expert codification of knowledge" as "hermetically sealed, contained, and unchanging". Authors and researchers such as Garcia, Ajotikar van Straaten and Hoffmann have questioned how the sound archive can be characterized as a form of discursive knowledge and explored the specific scientific paradigms from which a sound archive emerges. Some authors have also examined whether aesthetic criteria play a role in the creation of a sound archive and what ideologies are oriented and expressed within it, as well as considering whether sound archives consist of fragmentary, unfinished, and multi-sourced discourses. Given the challenges posed by imperialistic epistemic undercurrents in the practice of recording, objectifying, and collecting "Othered sounds" from the so-called non-Western world as scientific objects of knowledge, sound archives are far from being innocent or neutral. Our aim will be to critically address sound archives' multifarious roles in creating, consolidating, and reproducing power and knowledge structures. At the same time, we will also listen for cracks, anomalies, and silences, attending to a (sonic) disruptive potential that questions underlying epistemological hierarchies in archives. In this seminar, we will create spaces for discussion based on the reading of texts from researchers and authors, while also exploring some examples of decolonial efforts in the field, such as repatriation, ethical protocols, restitution of rights, burials, and rituals, among others, as described by Fuhr Lewy, Ismaiel-Wendt, Koch, and yamomo. This seminar also includes attendance to the international "Biennale Aktuelle Musik Bremen", where there will be the possibility of attending concerts, as well as discussions on this topic with international artists like Astrid Gonzalez, Carlos Saavedra, Tau Luna Acosta, Dave Phillips, Julia Hanadi and Gael Segalen. More info about the Biennale: https://www.pgnm.de/veranstaltungen/biennale/2024/11/biennale.php