This opening chapter branches out into two sub-chapters which combine to prepare us for the journeys that we will undertake in the course of this research, as revealed in the chapters which follow. Officially, from the time I registered as a PhD student, I have taken almost eight years to come to this point in my research. The work is by no means complete. At the moment of presenting the thesis, I felt I was standing at a halting station; there was still a long way to go. While the written thesis got sealed, this archive which complements the thesis, can be like a palimpsest. We can keep adding to it, making it grow. I think that if the listener/reader closely studies the field recordings and field photos of this archive and marks their dates, even though the research is not arranged chronologically but thematically, they will notice how the work has changed shape over the years. In a sense, this archive also lays bare the anatomy of a research; it is concerned more with the process of archiving than in the archive as a product.