The Sound-Text Archive of Muslim Women of West Africa (STAMWWA): Challenges and Opportunities in Intermedial Auditory Workflows

Abstract The Sound-Text Archive of Muslim Women of West Africa (STAMWWA) STAMWWA is a multilingual, intermedial platform conveying audible accounts from a group of Muslim women of West Africa and its diaspora, addressing current issues surrounding faith and practice, while simultaneously promoting the use of African languages in responses. Originating from a teaching module, a conference and a questionnaire sent through WhatsApp, the article describes the workflow of the archive as an audio-text digital object and its assembly process highlighting a step by step roadmap for future practitioners to replicate, adapt, or none, in terms of reproducibility and sustainability. It also discusses the tools and methodological mechanisms in its arrangement, alongside ethical concerns such as privacy and anonymity. Outlining the main challenges surrounding the reception of audio data, the physicality and tangible presence of data is also showcased. Uploading the workflow in digital infrastructures helps illustrate the multi-contextualization of this specific project within different fields of digital research disciplines and the lifecycle of audio collections. The article concludes with a summary of the most significant current results and concluding remarks that centre on challenges as prospective opportunities in intermedial, auditory workflows.