8 - Reflections: historical anthropology and the construction of Africa's past

Summary

As anthropologists have turned to history, they have worked to construct their own archives in order to probe colonialism's culture, to interrogate the silences and mentions that flow from European representations of “the other” (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992:34; Stoler and Cooper 1997). But archaeological sources are typically not part of that archive. Instead, archaeology continues to be a source of insight into a baseline past, a past before important changes took place, a prehistory tacked on in prefatory fashion to the dynamism of history captured by oral and written sources (Lightfoot 1995; Schmidt and Patterson 1995:13). This study was motivated by a conviction that history-making – in pasts proximate and distant – would be enriched by archaeological sources. Rather than a source of last resort, the residues of daily life – house floors, charred seeds, animal bones, broken pots, beads, metal tools – attest to the materiality of history; that history begins “with bodies and artifacts” (Trouillot 1995:29). Moreover, archaeology provides a resolutely local view, a counterbalance to the metropolitan focus of documentary archives. Only local-level studies can inform on the choices people make as they confront the broader political-economic contexts that condition their lives. We've seen that these shaped decisions made by Kuulo and Makala villagers about: where to live (in aggregated or dispersed settlements); investment in housing (what building techniques to use, whether to rebuild or refurbish); and whether to abandon their homes or seek refuge in this frontier area.