Shubha Chaudhuri has a PhD in Linguistics. She has been with the Archives and Research
Centre for Ethnomusicology of the American Institute of Indian Studies since its
inception in 1982, and Director since 1985.
In the field of audio-visual archiving, her major interests have been database applications,
research archives and ethnomusicology, issues of Intellectual Property Rights and
community archives. She has presented papers at many national and international venues
in these areas.
Her fieldwork has been in Western Rajasthan, Goa and Kutch. She has co-authored with
Daniel Neuman and Komal Kothari “Bards, Ballads and Boundaries: an ethnographic
atlas of music in West Rajasthan, and co-edited with Anthony Seeger “Archives for the
future: global perspectives on Audiovisual archiving in the 21 st Century” , and “
Remembered Rhythms: Essays on diaspora and the music of India”. Current projects
include digitisation of legacy audio collections, as well as a project on the ballad
traditions of Manganiar and Langa musicians in Western Rajasthan.
She has served as Vice President of the International Association of Sound and Audio
Visual Archives, the Executive Board of the ICTM (International Council of Traditional
Music), and as a council member of the Society of Ethnomusicology.
Shubha Chaudhuri has been a consultant for the Ford Foundation in the area of
audiovisual archiving for projects in India, Indonesia and Sudan. She has been active in
holding training workshops for archiving and ethnomusicology and serving as consultant
with the WIPO Creative Heritage Project and with UNESCO for the cultural mapping
project, and interactive museums.
As a trained facilitator of UNESCO she has been active in Capacity Building workshops
for the implementation of the 2003 Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention in Nepal,
Bhutan, Cambodia, Maldives and Lao PDR.