Precolonial African Material Culture

Precolonial African Material Culture PDF Author: V. Tarikhu Farrar
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793606439
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
The idea of an inherent backwardness of technology and material culture in early sub-Saharan Africa is a persistent and tenacious myth in the scholarly and popular imagination. Due to the emergence of the field of African studies and the upsurge in historical and archaeological research, in recent decades the stridency of this myth has weakened, and the overtly racist content of arguments mustered in its defense have tended to disappear. But more important are transformations in social, political, and cultural consciousness, which have worked to reshape conceptualizations of African peoples, their histories, and their cultures. Precolonial African Material Culture offers a thorough challenge to the myth of technological backwardness. V. Tarikhu Farrar revisits the early technology of sub-Saharan Africa as revealed by recent research and reconsiders long-possessed primary historical sources. He then explores the ways that indigenous African technologies have influenced the world beyond the African continent.

Precolonial African Material Culture

Precolonial African Material Culture PDF Author: V. Tarikhu Farrar
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793606439
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
The idea of an inherent backwardness of technology and material culture in early sub-Saharan Africa is a persistent and tenacious myth in the scholarly and popular imagination. Due to the emergence of the field of African studies and the upsurge in historical and archaeological research, in recent decades the stridency of this myth has weakened, and the overtly racist content of arguments mustered in its defense have tended to disappear. But more important are transformations in social, political, and cultural consciousness, which have worked to reshape conceptualizations of African peoples, their histories, and their cultures. Precolonial African Material Culture offers a thorough challenge to the myth of technological backwardness. V. Tarikhu Farrar revisits the early technology of sub-Saharan Africa as revealed by recent research and reconsiders long-possessed primary historical sources. He then explores the ways that indigenous African technologies have influenced the world beyond the African continent.

A Material Culture

A Material Culture PDF Author: Stephanie Wynne-Jones
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191077178
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
A Material Culture focuses on objects in Swahili society through the elaboration of an approach that sees people and things as caught up in webs of mutual interaction. It therefore provides both a new theoretical intervention in some of the key themes in material culture studies, including the agency of objects and the ways they were linked to social identities, through the development of the notion of a biography of practice. These theoretical discussions are explored through the archaeology of the Swahili, on the Indian Ocean coast of eastern Africa. This coast was home to a series of settlements from the seventh century onwards; some grew to become coral-built 'stonetowns'. These precolonial towns, such as Kilwa Kisiwani, Mombasa, and Gede, represent a unique urban tradition. They were deeply involved in maritime trade, carried out by a diverse Islamic population. This book suggests that the Swahili are a highly-significant case study for exploration of the relationship between objects and people in the past, as the society was constituted and defined through a particular material setting. Further, it is suggested that this relationship was subtly different than in other areas, and particularly from western models that dominate prevailing analysis. The case is made for an alternative form of materiality, perhaps common to the wider Indian Ocean world, with an emphasis on redistribution and circulation rather than on the accumulation of wealth. The reader will therefore gain familiarity with a little-known and fascinating culture, as well as appreciating the ways that non-western examples can add to our theoretical models.

African Material Culture

African Material Culture PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description


African Material Culture

African Material Culture PDF Author: Mary Jo Arnoldi
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253116635
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"This volume has much to recommend it -- providing fascinating and stimulating insights into many arenas of material culture, many of which still remain only superficially explored in the archaeological literature." -- Archaeological Review "... a vivid introduction to the topic.... A glimpse into the unique and changing identities in an ever-changing world." -- Come-All-Ye Fourteen interdisciplinary essays open new perspectives for understanding African societies and cultures through the contextualized study of objects, treating everything from the production of material objects to the meaning of sticks, masquerades, household tools, clothing, and the television set in the contemporary repertoire of African material culture.

The Material Culture of Zimbabwe

The Material Culture of Zimbabwe PDF Author: H. Ellert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description


Undercurrents of Power

Undercurrents of Power PDF Author: Kevin Dawson
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812224930
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Kevin Dawson considers how enslaved Africans carried aquatic skills—swimming, diving, boat making, even surfing—to the Americas. Undercurrents of Power not only chronicles the experiences of enslaved maritime workers, but also traverses the waters of the Atlantic repeatedly to trace and untangle cultural and social traditions.

Precolonial Black Africa

Precolonial Black Africa PDF Author: Cheikh Anta Diop
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613747454
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
This comparison of the political and social systems of Europe and black Africa from antiquity to the formation of modern states demonstrates the black contribution to the development of Western civilization.

Ethnic Ambiguity and the African Past

Ethnic Ambiguity and the African Past PDF Author: Francois G Richard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315429004
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Authors engage with contemporary anthropological, historical and archaeological perspectives to examine how ideas of self-understanding, belonging, and difference in ancient Africa were made and unmade in their intersection with other salient domains of social experience: states, landscapes, discourses, memory, technology, politics, and power.

The Material Culture of the Peoples of the Gwembe Valley

The Material Culture of the Peoples of the Gwembe Valley PDF Author: Barrie Reynolds
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719012419
Category : Ethnology
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description


Labour and Living Standards in Pre-Colonial West Africa

Labour and Living Standards in Pre-Colonial West Africa PDF Author: Klas Rönnbäck
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317222164
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in the world. But its current status has skewed our understanding of the economy before colonization. Rönnbäck reconstructs the living standards of the population at a time when the Atlantic slave trade brought money and men into the area, enriching our understanding of West African economic development.