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Although the need to study agriculture in different parts of the world on its “own terms” has long been recognized and re-affirmed, a tendency persists to evaluate agriculture across the globe using concepts, lines of evidence and methods derived from Eurasian research. However, researchers working in different regions are becoming increasingly aware of fundamental differences in the nature of, and methods employed to study, agriculture and plant exploitation practices in the past. Contributions to this volume rethink agriculture, whether in terms of existing regional chronologies, in terms of techniques employed, or in terms of the concepts that frame our interpretations. This volume highlights new archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research on early agriculture in understudied non-Eurasian regions, including Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the Americas and Africa, to present a more balanced view of the origins and development of agricultural practices around the globe.
"This volume applies insights drawn from the theories and methods of landscape archaeology to contribute to our understanding of the nature if West African societies in the Atlantic Era (17th-19th Centuries AD). The authors adopt a briad set of methods and approaches to tackle how the nature and structures of African political and social relations changed across regions in this period. This is only the second volume in a decade to focus on the archeology of this period in West Africa, and the first volume in sub-Saharan Africanist archeology to be focused in the recent past in oue sub-region of the continent from a coherent methodological and theoretical standpoint"--Provided by publisher.
West Africa is a rich storehouse of heritage resources belonging to different time periods. Archaeologists attempt to exhume, analyse, and interpret aspects of human history found in artifacts and their contexts. The longstanding assumption that archaeology is simply a science of the past, with little thought for the present, must be rejected. This book makes a striking argument for a curricular revolution which taps into the strengths of such allied fields as heritage, tourism, and museum management, which come together to constitute Cultural Resource Management (CRM). This account reveals, in an inspiringly clear fashion, that the era of conceptualising archaeology as a near-complete academic exercise is over. Trans-disciplinary knowledge application, such as that which is found in CRM, has the capacity to create employment opportunities for archaeologists, and other cultural resource management graduates, in West Africa and beyond. It is time to take a first step in constructing the pathways of progress in the competitive world of modern education.
Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past offers a comprehensive assessment of new directions in the historiography of West Africa. With twenty-four chapters by leading researchers in the study of West African history and cultures, the volume examines the main trends in multiple fields including the critical interpretation of Arabic sources; new archaeological surveys of trans-Saharan trade; the discovery of sources in Latin America relating to pan-Atlantic histories; and the continuing analysis of oral histories. The volume is dedicated to Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, whose work inspired the intellectual reorientations discussed in its chapters and stands as the clearest formulation of the book’s central focus on the relationship between political conjunctures and the production of sources. Contributors are: Benjamin Acloque, Karin Barber, Seydou Camara, Mamadou Diawara, Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, François-Xavier Fauvelle, Nikolas Gestrich, Toby Green, Bruce Hall, Jan Jansen, Shamil Jeppie, Daouda Keita, Murray Last, Robin Law, Camille Lefebvre, Paul Lovejoy, Ghislaine Lydon, Carlos Magnavita, Sonja Magnavita, Kevin MacDonald, Thomas McCaskie, Ann McDougall, Daniela Moreau, Mauro Nobili, Insa Nolte, Abel-Wedoud Ould-Cheikh, Benedetta Rossi, Charles Stewart.
Although the need to study agriculture in different parts of the world on its “own terms” has long been recognized and re-affirmed, a tendency persists to evaluate agriculture across the globe using concepts, lines of evidence and methods derived from Eurasian research. However, researchers working in different regions are becoming increasingly aware of fundamental differences in the nature of, and methods employed to study, agriculture and plant exploitation practices in the past. Contributions to this volume rethink agriculture, whether in terms of existing regional chronologies, in terms of techniques employed, or in terms of the concepts that frame our interpretations. This volume highlights new archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research on early agriculture in understudied non-Eurasian regions, including Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the Americas and Africa, to present a more balanced view of the origins and development of agricultural practices around the globe.
An inspiring editorial analysis and interpretation of aspects of Nigerian history, culture, and politics, from mankind’s archaeological past to ethnographic present, this book contextualises cultural history as instrument of sustainable development in postcolonial Nigeria. Nigeria’s rich cultural history defines its physical environment, cultural diversities, early industrial technology and even its various challenges of development. Yet, little is achieved in engaging cultural history as cultural experience for the country’s development. The gains of cultural history as a mirror of the past and inspiration for development is ignored. This difficulty in harnessing the potential for development in Nigeria found in the country’s cultural history leaves us vulnerable to repeating past mistakes. The book is accessible, and aimed at giving the readers a unique and expansive understanding of history, cultural knowledge, and their applications in Nigerian postcolonial development agendas. This makes the book essential for scholars of anthropology, archaeology, history, linguistics, sociology, political science, and geography, as well as policy makers.
Marginality and Crisis: Globalization and Identity in Contemporary Africa extends the scope and understanding of the effects of globalization and its forces on Africa. With each chapter written by specialists who recognize that the future of Africa is entwined with that of the rest of the world, this volume explains with fresh vigor the new thinking on the historical specificity, value, opportunity, and shortcomings of globalization for a continent many regard as marginalized and in crisis. In the face of much pessimism, several questions have engaged the attention of this young generation of African scholars: Where is Africa in relation to globalization? Where are the things that make Africa Africa (such as economy, politics, culture, identity, and human relations) headed? Are Africa's communities helpless against global forces or empowered by new avenues of access? How do scholars and policymakers engage the problems of globalization vis-^-vis Africa's ethnic, linguistic, and other identities? What are the economic and political trajectories in various countries and localities? An invaluable source for scholars, students, and the general reader, the essays in this book have confidently and clearly explored and explained the crises that have engulfed the continent in the age of globalization. Unlike other works that have dwelt only on the continent's victimhood, this volume identifies key areas in which Africa can become more proactive and outward-looking in response to the forces and values that take the globe as their reference points.
This work explores the archaeologies of daily living left by the indigenous and other displaced peoples impacted by European colonial expansion over the last 600 years. Case studies from North America, Australia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Ireland significantly revise conventional historical narratives of those interactions, their presumed impacts, and their ongoing relevance for the material, social, economic, and political lives and identities of contemporary indigenous and other peoples.
This book illuminates the complex and constantly shifting social and cultural dynamics that shape people's identity. Specifically, the volume focuses on the intersections of gender with, culture and identity, and at different historical epochs; on the way men and women define themselves and are defined by diverse peoples and cultures across time and space in sub-Saharan Africa. The discussions presented in this anthology primarily focus on 'being' as 'a state' or 'condition', defined by sex identity, and how this identity shifts, and hence 'becoming', assuming diverse meanings in disparate societies, contexts, and time. The discourse, therefore, moves from how the perception of the self in cultural and historical contexts has informed actions and at some other times shaped interpretations given to historical facts, to how changing economic realities also shape the definitions and constructions of social and relational issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. The historical trajectories of Islamic religion, colonialism and Christian missionary activities in sub-Saharan Africa have shaped the worlds of the peoples of the region and impacted on gender relations.