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Introduction
Community archaeology and heritage in Africa: decolonizing practice
Innocent Pikirayi and Peter R. Schmidt
Backdrop and rationale
Archaeology on the African continent is a century-long practice, characterized largely by research approaches that do not consult and engage with local and indigenous communities. As a discipline brought about by European colonization, archaeology was and remains a practice situated in the context of the conquered and dispossessed, who subsequently feature as âethnographic subjectsâ or tribes or ethnic groups largely unconnected from pasts constructed by archaeologists. In this manner, it parallels North American archaeology as practiced in Native American communities (Kehoe 1998). The primary interest of the discipline lies in the acquisition of empirical evidence derived from stratigraphy, artifact collection and description, and basic culture histories. These are necessary components to build regional pasts, but they remain the foremost goals in archaeological practice, relatively untouched by the processual movement and perhaps more influenced by post-processual approaches. While one might have hoped for more intimate engagement with communities by post-processual archaeologists, the record is mixed, ranging from quick surveys in northern Kenya where people were treated as research âsubjectsâ (e.g., Hodder 1982), to approaches that used extensive interviewing and long-term community residency and familiarity (e.g., Childs 2000; Fontein 2006; Ndoro 2005; Pikirayi 1993, 2011; Schmidt 1978, 1997), and finally to treatments that use structural analyses that erase historical process and change (e.g., Huffman 1984, 1996, 2014).
These studies vary widely, from using theories and methods from the West to understand Africaâs past (Pikirayi 2015b) to incorporating African ways of knowing and representing the past. Despite the latter trend, archaeology in Africa is dominated by practice that eschews consultation and engagement with local and indigenous communities. This separation between archaeological practice and the interests of communities has increased since the 1990s, with the growing importance of cultural heritage management of archaeologists in many parts of Africa perceiving community representations of heritage as politics of the past, a representation that captures the idea that community claims to heritage identities are political acts threatening archaeologists who see heritage sites as potential scientific laboratories (see Trigger [1980] for parallel trends in North America).
The separation of communities from archaeological practice, however, does not fit with other historical trajectories of engagement around the continent. For example, ethnoarchaeology has long been a source of community contributions to research that inquires into history, heritage, and cosmology. Such research (Folorunso and Ogundele 1993; Fontein 2006; Ogundiran 2001, 2002; Posnansky 2004, 2010; Schmidt 1978, 1997; Smith and David 1995; Walz 2009) illustrates that when African peoples participate in representations of their pasts, a significantly enriched archaeology emerges, liberated from dominant Western methods and paradigms. This approach fits well with Atalayâs inclusion of indigenous views through ethnohistory: âBringing this knowledge to the foreground and acknowledging ethnohistoric data as central for including Indigenous views in interpretations are both aspects of a decolonizing archaeology practiceâ (Atalay 2006a:275). Such practices in Africa have gone unrecognized for decades, even though deeply embedded as ways of privileging African knowledge and influencing archaeological theory (see Ellison et al. 1996).
Our perspective in this volume is that history is imagined differently in African contexts, and this should influence how we conduct our research and write about the past. Memory is central to African history, part of the historical experience and landscape, and integral to history making. The written word and the spoken word are both influenced by vectors of transformation and manipulation. Both are valid sources, yet oral texts provide more authoritative contexts within African settings and are valued by those who produce and preserve them. We have afforded printed texts a privileged position at the expense of the oral texts, and this has shaped history writing and the production of historical pasts (Schmidt 2006). It seems axiomatic that to understand African oral texts and to utilize them in history making (including archaeology) and heritage, we must connect with history keepers within their quotidian lives, building trust and collaborative relationships that lead to co-production.
We do not subscribe to one way of conducting community archaeology and heritage work, though we are inspired by diverse perspectives arising out of North America (Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson 2008a; McDavid 2002, 2007; Nicholas 2012; Nicholas et al. 2008; Silliman 2008), South America (Angelo 2011; Green et al. 2011; Heckenberger 2008; Vasco 2011), and Australia (Greer 2010; C. Smith and Jackson 2008; L. Smith 2006; L. Smith et al. 2003). We respect Sonya Atalayâs (2006, 2012) helpful exegesis of how to conduct community-based participatory research while acknowledging, as she does, that it is not always possible to implement every step of a participatory project. As Atalay finds in her own work, when there are local infrastructures such as NGOs set up to take on community heritage or archaeology research activities, fewer obstacles face individuals or groups of archaeologists embarking on community engagements. Each communityâbe it rural village, small trading town, or peri-urban marketplaceâhas distinctive and special needs and sensibilities. There is no formula that will fit all. Moser and colleagues (2002) set out a step-by-step program derived from their research in an Egyptian community. It is helpful to understand how they organized their research, but it may not fit with other communitiesâ needs around the African continent. It is at best only a loose guideline for issues that researchers should consider incorporating into a plan of action with their community counterparts; the final research design and plan of implementation may take very different directions, as our case studies illustrate in this volume.
Decolonization
We want to emphasize that most of the archaeology conducted in Africa occurs within a colonial paradigm. We are far from decolonizing our practice. Attempts to confront the seriousness of this issue have largely been ignored or seen as a nuisance by some. For example, if Postcolonial Archaeologies in Africa (Schmidt 2009) had been read by Western archaeologists of Africa and had had the impact on practice that was hoped for, then the necessity to raise the issue would not be as compelling. Archaeological practice in much of the continent continues according to protocols and expectations inherited from the colonial period. When such practices are challenged (Karega-Munene and Schmidt 2010) then such questioning evokes strong defensive denials (see Killick 2010; Stahl 2010). There have been few significant breaks from the colonial period to the postcolonial in terms of professional expectations, research planning, research execution, and final report production (Schmidt and Patterson 1995a, 1995b; Shepherd 2002, 2003a); we will examine the few departures from the colonial paradigm of âwork as usualâ for their foresight and exemplary illustration of the potential of community engagement.
For the most part, all the steps in archaeological inquiry remain in the control of the professionals who promulgate research, failing to recognize common interests with communities in which they practice and steadfastly maintaining that they see no reason to engage in âunscientificâ research that may include community participation (Ndlovu 2011b). There is also a deep-seated fear of consulting and engaging with local communities, as engagement carries with it necessary skills in language and anthropological training that some archaeologists lack (Schmidt 2009, this volume). Such attitudes are deeply entrenched in Africa, partly because most of the continent discarded colonial rule only a half-century ago and colonial legacies have deep roots in the postcolonial period. The postcolonial period has seen a perpetuation of the colonial status quo in many domains of daily life from education to banking practices to academic standards. Archaeology is no different. As communities become aware of their rights, it is increasingly clear that they will no longer tolerate the arrogant practice of an archaeology that enters their midst, fails to engage local people in designing the goals of the project, and gives nothing back to the community. Such practices are now being seen as exploitative and contrary to the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) 1st Code of Ethics (World Archaeological Congress 1990), which explicitly codifies reciprocal responsibilities:
[Section 6] To acknowledge and recognise indigenous methodologies for interpreting, curating, managing and protecting indigenous cultural heritage. [Section 7] To establish equitable partnerships and relationships between Members [sic] and indigenous peoples whose cultural heritage is being investigated.
The principles enshrined in these two sentences should be, we argue, the guidelines for ethical practice in Africa and elsewhereânot just for members of WAC. Incorporation of these principles into everyday archaeology ensures diminishment of alienation that sets in when archaeologists come into a community or plant themselves near a site and make no attempt to relate to the needs and concerns of people who consider the site a part of their world. There is no need to be a descendant community, for there are myriad examples where communities use ancient sites for ritual and other purposes without tracing cultural or biological links with these ancient locales (Pwiti and Mvenge 1996; Pwiti et al. 2007). It is a sense of belonging, a sense of place that is instrumental in such relationships, powerful reasons for the formation of partnerships that ensure the contribution of local knowledge.
The issues raised here center on the need to practice archaeology differently in Africa, paying particular attention to deep and long-term engagements between archaeologists and heritage workers and communities, rather than imagined or rhetorical engagements with local and indigenous peoples. One of the reasons for the workshop from which this book arises is the need to go beyond the common lip-service paid to community approaches and community-based participatory research (Schmidt 2014a). We are keenly aware, as participants in WAC congresses, Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) annual meetings, and Society for American Archaeology (SAA) annual meetings that there is a plethora of âCommunity Archaeologyâ sessions, with many devoted to various varieties of public archaeology but relatively few engaging issues that arise from long-term longitudinal community work. Our objective in using and highlighting case studies that capture extended engagement is to underline the need to develop more rewarding and locally based archaeological approaches, approaches that completely reshape our practice as archaeologists and break away from the top-down power relationships that characterize the colonial paradigm.
The case studies in this volume provide an opportunity to examine what is meant by community. The umbrella usage of âcommunityâ is a widely debated concept that we intend to explore through communities that we engage as archaeologists working in Africa (Chirikure and Pwiti 2008). In other words, we are more interested in the realities of what we encounter in our practice than in an abstract discussion of what is or what is not community. Our engagements tend to be with rural communities, mostly villages and small towns. Villages are often bounded residential units of kin groups as primary residents. These geo-social units range from kin-based to diverse populations that include migrant laborers, immigrants, and others such as teachers and government representatives. Thus, the internal diversity of such communities is such that social and economic divisions hold different interests in heritage and archaeology, if such interests exist in the first place. For example, we find that the diverse ethnic groups living along the littoral of eastern Africa known as the Swahili within one settingâShimoni in southern Kenyaâis a settlement of Arab-descendant people as well as a Giriama settlement, with Luo and Kamba (upcountry groups) residents. All are distinct sub-communities with their own identities, religion, and ways of life, but together they form part of a larger geo-political community with overlapping interests.
Issues of archaeology and heritage
One of the themes that emerge from our papers and discussions is problems embedded within the concept of archaeological heritage. We commonly encounter discourse in the discipline that identifies archaeological sites or archaeologically identified items as âarchaeological heritage.â We question whether the sites identified by archaeologists and the artifacts recovered from them are heritage. Whose heritage are they? Do indigenous or native peoples identify them as integral to their heritage? Yes, they may in some cases, but not in others, where such findings do not relate to their way of seeing and believing. For example, Blombos Cave in South Africa is an enormously important archaeological locale for understanding the lifeways of early humans, but it is a heritage site only insofar as people around the globe identify it as having meaning for their origins as humans. In most cases, archaeological sites are not the heritage of archaeologists who are often far removed in time and culture from any identification with these phenomena. If they are not heritage for archaeologists, then who identifies them as such? Paradoxically, it is archaeologists that identify them as âheritage sites,â an identity claim that affirms their privileged access (L. Smith 2006).
Recently at an opening of a University of Pretoria exhibit of bone and ivory artifacts from Mapungubwe, a World Heritage Site in South Africa, the exhibited artifacts were called âarchaeological heritage.â This designation is a misnomer, for it assigns heritage meaning from an archaeological perspective. The objects are artifacts from Mapungubwe; they may have heritage meaning to particular descendant communities or neighboring groups, but they have no embedded heritage value as archaeological objects. There are occasionally exceptions to this principle, particularly when communities identify with and appropriate archaeological objects and sites as an integral part of their heritage discourse (Schmidt 2014b). The experience of Katuruka villagers in northwestern Tanzania illustrates how long-term familiarity and participation in archaeological inquiry into ancient iron working at a major archaeological site came to be translated into everyday discourse about community heritage and identity (Schmidt, this volume).
The chapters in this volume focus on heritage. We use the term âheritageâ to refer to the entire range of phenomena claimed as heritage by African peoples, including cultural landscapes and their richly associated narratives. Heritage encompasses the worldviews of societies or communities and how they are manifest in the present. We agree with Laurajane Smithâs (2006:54) construction of heritage as intangible expressions, ways âof knowing and seeingâ that inform and give meaning to the material world (also see Gonçalves et al. 2005). Shimoni Caves, for example, had historical and archaeological significance, but it was not until the local community contributed their ideas and narratives about the caves that they assumed heritage values (P. O. Abungu, this volume). Another illustration of how heritage remains inert until activated by cultural performance is seen in the history of the famous Esiáşš soapstone figurines in southwestern Nigeria; the soapstone figurines were first treated as archaeological objects (Clarke 1938; Aleru and Adekola, this volume), and then were enshrined in a local branch of the National Museum as objects indicative of a more magnificent past. Treated in this manner, they lacked heritage value. It was not until local interest groups among the Igbomina people (a Yoruba group) began to claim them as important ancestral figures with heritage significance that these objects took on heritage value (Aleru and Adekola, this volume).
Reflexivity
Our discussion in the workshop repeatedly came back to the theme of reflexivity. Practice of archaeology necessarily carries with it issues of power often expressed by control over financial resources, over planning and research design, over day-to-day decision-making, and over who interviews potential knowledge holders and the like. The use of power to lever access to communities and then manipulate possible stakeholders occurs in archaeological practice on a global level. A reflexive posture requires that we constantly assess our own positionality by exercising a self-critical approach that takes into account our own subjectivities as well as the subjectivities of those with whom we work. Fundamental questions are relevant here: Who do we select to engage with, and what consequences does that have for different factions within the community? How are some stakeholders privileged by our presence and by participation in our archaeological or heritage inquiry? How does this impact the welfare of the community? Do we take sufficient care to assess how we are used by political interests and what possible harm this may do to the welfare of groups outside our orbit? All of these questions pertain to power, the power in our hands (Rizvi 2006a, 2006b). This is a deeply embedded conundrum: How are we to engage with stakeholders in a participatory manner if we hold most or all the power in deciding research agendas or where the research is to be undertaken?
A reflective posture with such questions also requires an honest written record, a record of our thoughts about giving up power, accommodating local interests and agendas, and sharing resources. We have found that such a record may provide a more pragmatic and fair roadmap for action. It helps to formulate more concrete plans if we put ideas of power sharing into daily practice. Some examples of reflexivity in action are helpful here. Before Pikirayi conducted a survey in the Chesa/Mount Fura area, he assumed that with a permit he would be able to go anywhere to meet his research goals, with communities showing him where to locate sites. Given the âillegalâ gold panning in the area, he was mistaken for a government agent and given little to no cooperation. In desperation and frustration he reevaluated his subjectivities and position in the community, put aside his survey maps and instruments, and headed for a nearby bar to engage with local elders. The resulting conversations led to an understanding of who he was, something the locals found reassuring. A few elders immediately invited him to their own farms, where some of the archaeological evidence for which he had long been searching would be found. Reflexivity enters this scenario by critical examination of the assumptions guiding his research, leading ultimately to a total transformation of his research plan that was initially guided by perceived systematic transects. This reorientation of research strategy to include local voices and knowledge is now an integral part of Pikirayiâs approach to archaeological inquiryâfull participation of community members in designing and carrying out research goals.
We are often asked by colleagues how to go about being reflexive. The answer is not mystifying or complicated. There are straightforward methods that lead to a reflexive pathway, such as writing notes in the form of a journal, openly expressing reactions to the local scene and questioning the assumptions you have made, and incorporating reactions and revelations. Later review of these thoughts and observations, sometimes accompanied by the guiding hand of a mentor or colleague, may lead to better understandings of contradictions and conflicts that emerge from daily interaction as well as more profitable pathways to collaboration. When such insights unfold, they provide a channel to formulate a plan of action more congruent with local thinking and knowledge. Schmidtâs experience in Katuruka village illustrates this process (Schmidt 2010, 2014b, this volume). By recording his reactions and thoughts about his community interactions daily, he came to realize that local histories provided by women about a ritual female figure were an important avenue of research to explore. It was his counterpartâs insistence to pursue this line of inquiry, contrary to previously planned interview schedules, that made Schmidt realize that an earlier plan needed to be set aside and the local investigatorâs agenda privileged. The consequences were very significantâthe revelation of a ritual process that incorporates ancestral spirits possessing snakesâone of a long line of animist transformations that adds great depth to the ritual values attached to the famous Kaiija shrine.
We see a similar experience informing the research of George Abungu and colleagues on Pate Island off the northern Kenya coast. As a heritage expert affiliated with the National Museum of Kenya (NMK), Abungu brought a variety of working assumptions about heritage and its ownership into his field inquiries on Pate in 1992 when his team arrived on the island ready to excavate (G. Abungu, this volume). He found the local attitudes toward excavation in the spaces between their homes downright hostile, requiring that his team stop work to open a dialogue with the Pate community. The community reaction to the NMK presence resulted from previous top-down research projects that excluded local voices and concerns. Abunguâs reflexive engagement with the people of Pate was different...
