Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T00:21:26.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘They are all dead that I could ask’: Indigenous Innovation and the Micropolitics of the Field in Twentieth-century Southern Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2021

Rachel King Open the ORCID record for Rachel King [Opens in a new window] ,
Adelphine Bonneau  and
David Pearce
Rachel King
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology University College London 31–34 Gordon Square LondonWC1H 0PYUnited Kingdom & Rock Art Research Institute University of the Witwatersrand Private Bag X3 Wits 2050 JohannesburgSouth Africa Email: [email protected]
Adelphine Bonneau
Affiliation:
Rock Art Research Institute University of the Witwatersrand Private Bag X3 Wits 2050 JohannesburgSouth Africa & School of Archaeology University of Oxford 1 South Parks Road OxfordOX1 3TGUK & Université du Québec à Chicoutimi 555 Boulevard de l'UniversitéChicoutimiQCG7H 2B1Canada Email: [email protected]
David Pearce
Affiliation:
Rock Art Research Institute University of the Witwatersrand Private Bag X3 Wits 2050 JohannesburgSouth Africa Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recovering the agency, skill and innovation of archaeological field assistants from historical encounters is essential to interrogating processes of knowledge production, but is often hampered by access to appropriate archival sources and methods. We detail a field project from early twentieth-century Basutoland (modern-day Lesotho) that is unique both for its aim to salvage details of rock-art production as a dying craft and for its archive chronicling the project's intellectual journey from experiment to draft manuscripts to published work over more than three decades. We argue that critical historiographic attention to this archive offers a guide for examining the intimate dynamics of fieldwork and the effects of these micropolitics on the archaeological canon. We demonstrate how sustained attention to long processes of knowledge production can pinpoint multiple instances in which the usability of field assistants’ scientific knowledge is qualified, validated, or rejected, and in this case how an African assistant is transformed into an ethnographic interlocutor. For rock-art studies especially, this represents a need for interrogating the epistemic cultures—not just the content—of foundational historical data.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 2022 , pp. 137 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arbousset, T. & Daumas, F., 1846. Narrative of an Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Cape Town: A.S. Robertson, Heerengracht, Saul Solomon & Co.Google Scholar
Bank, A., 2000. Evolution and racial theory: the hidden side of Wilhelm Bleek. South African Historical Journal 43, 163–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biko, S., 1987. I Write What I Like. Oxford: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Bleek, D.F., 1956. A Bushman Dictionary. New Haven (CT): American Oriental Society.Google Scholar
Blundell, G., 2004. Nqabayo's Nomansland: San rock art and the somatic past. Uppsala: Uppsala University Press.Google Scholar
Challis, S., 2012. Creolisation on the nineteenth-century frontiers of southern Africa: a case study of the AmaTola ‘Bushmen’ in the Maloti-Drakensberg. Journal of Southern African Studies 38(2), 265–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chippindale, C. & Taçon, P.S.C., 1998. An archaeology of rock art through informed methods and formal methods, in The Archaeology of Rock-Art, eds Chippindale, C. & Taçon, P.S.C.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–10.Google Scholar
Christol, F., 1911. L'art dans L'Afrique australe: Impressions et Souvenirs de Mission. Paris: Berger-Levrault.Google Scholar
Conkey, M., 2001. Structural and semiotic approaches, in Handbook of Rock Art Research, ed. Whitley, D.S.. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira, 273–311.Google Scholar
Conkey, M., 2018. Interpretive frameworks and the study of the rock arts, in Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art, eds. David, B. & McNiven, I.J.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 25–50.Google Scholar
Cunningham, J.J. & MacEachern, S., 2016. Ethnoarchaeology as slow science. World Archaeology 48(5), 628–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daston, L. & Galison, P., 1992. The image of objectivity. Representations 40, 81–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubow, S., 2004. Earth history, natural history, and prehistory at the Cape, 1860–1875. Comparative Studies in Society and History 46, 107–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubow, S., 2006. A Commonwealth of Knowledge: Science, sensibility, and White South Africa 1920–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dubow, S., 2019. Henri Breuil and the imagination of prehistory: ‘mixing up rubble, trouble and stratification’. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12, 31–43.Google Scholar
Ellenberger, D.F. & MacGregor, J.C., 1912. History of the Basuto, Ancient and Modern. Morija: Morija Museum and Archives.Google Scholar
Fredriksen, P.D. & Bandama, F., 2016. The mobility of memory: space/knowledge dynamics in rural potting workshops in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 51(4), 489–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gosselain, O.P., 2016. To hell with ethnoarchaeology! Archaeological Dialogues 23(2), 215–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruber, J.W., 1970. Ethnographic salvage and the shaping of anthropology. American Anthropologist 72(6), 1289–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond-Tooke, W.D., 1998. Selective borrowing? The possibility of San shamanistic influence on southern Bantu divination and healing practices. South African Archaeological Bulletin 53, 9–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hountondji, P.J., 1995. Producing knowledge in Africa today: the second Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola distinguished lecture. African Studies Review 38(3), 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
How, M.W., 1962. Mountain Bushmen of Basutoland. Pretoria: J.L. Van Schaik.Google Scholar
Jacobs, N.J., 2006. The intimate politics of ornithology in colonial Africa. Comparative Studies in Society and History 48(3), 564–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jewsiewicki, B., 1982. African historical studies academic knowledge as ‘usable past’ and radical scholarship. African Studies Review 32(3), 1–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jolly, P., 1993. Strangers to Brothers: Interaction Between South-eastern San and Southern Nguni/Sotho Societies. MA dissertation, University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Jolly, P., 1996. Symbiotic interactions between black farmers and south-eastern San: implications for southern African rock art studies, ethnographic analogy and hunter-gatherer identity. Current Anthropology 37, 277–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, R., 2015. ‘A loyal liking for fair play’: Joseph Millerd Orpen and knowledge production in the Cape Colony. South African Historical Journal 67(4), 410–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, R., 2018. Histoire embrouillée: making material histories in southern Africa. History and Anthropology 29, 599–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, R., 2019. Outlaws, Anxiety, and Disorder in Southern Africa: Material histories of the Maloti-Drakensberg. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, P.J., 2011. Possibilities for a postcolonial archaeology in sub-Saharan Africa: indigenous and usable pasts. World Archaeology 43, 7–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, B., 1987. Science in Action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis-Williams, J.D., 1995. Modelling the production and consumption of rock art. South African Archaeological Bulletin 50(162), 143–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Williams, J. D. 2001. Southern African shamanistic rock art in its social and cognitive contexts, in The Archaeology of Shamanism, ed. Price, N.S.. London: Routledge, 17–39.Google Scholar
Lewis-Williams, J.D., 2002. A Cosmos in Stone: Interpreting religion and society through rock art. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira.Google Scholar
Lewis-Williams, J.D. & Dowson, T.A., 1990. Through the veil: San rock paintings and the rock face. South African Archaeological Bulletin 45(151), 5–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Williams, J.D. & Pearce, D.G., 2004. San Spirituality: Roots, expression, and social consequences. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira.Google Scholar
Lyons, D. & Casey, J., 2016. It's a material world: the critical and on-going value of ethnoarchaeology in understanding variation, change and materiality. World Archaeology 48(5), 609–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mallen, L., 2008. Rock Art and Identity in the North Eastern Cape Province. MA dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand.Google Scholar
Masolo, D.A., 1991. An archaeology of African knowledge: a discussion of V.Y. Mudimbe. Callaloo 14(4), 998–1011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masolo, D.A., 2003. Philosophy and indigenous knowledge: an African perspective. Africa Today 50(2), 21–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mavhunga, C.C., 2017. Introduction: what do science, technology, and innovation mean from Africa?, in What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?, ed. Mavhunga, C.C.. Boston: MIT Press, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGranaghan, M., 2016. The death of the agama lizard: the historical significances of a multi-authored rock-art site in the Northern Cape (South Africa). Cambridge Archaeological Journal 26(1), 157–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGranaghan, M. & Challis, S., 2017. Reconfiguring hunting magic: southern Bushman (San) perspectives on taming and their implications for understanding rock art. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 26(4), 579–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGranaghan, M., Challis, S. & Lewis-Williams, J.D., 2013. Joseph Millerd Orpen's ‘A glimpse into the mythology of the Maluti Bushmen’: a contextual introduction and republished text. Southern African Humanities 25(1), 137–66.Google Scholar
Mitchell, P., 2010. Making history at Sehonghong: Soai and the last Bushman occupants of his shelter. Southern African Humanities 22, 149–70.Google Scholar
Monney, J., 2015. Les miroirs imparfaits: une approche anthropologique de l'art rupestre. PhD dissertation, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre.Google Scholar
Monney, J. & Baracchini, L., 2018. The production of ethnographic records and their use in rock art research, in Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art, eds. David, B. & McNiven, I.J.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 529–44.Google Scholar
Morelli, E., 2019. ‘Have you ever captured anything for your parents?’ War, captivity, and slavery on the precolonial southern African Highveld, c. 1800–71. Journal of African History 60(1), 45–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mudimbe, V.Y., 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, philosophy, and the order of knowledge. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ranger, T.O., 1976. Toward a usable African past. In African Studies Since 1945: A tribute to Basil Davidson, ed. Fyfe, C.H.. London: Longman, 28–39.Google Scholar
Riggs, C., 2017. Objects in the photographic archive: between the field and the museum in Egyptian archaeology. Museum History Journal 10(2), 140–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roddick, A.P. & Stahl, A.B. (eds), 2016. Knowledge in Motion: Constellations of learning across time and place. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, R., [1989] 1993. Culture and Truth: The remaking of social analysis. Boston (MA): Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Schlanger, N., 2002. Making the past for South Africa's future: the prehistory of Field-Marshal Smuts (1920s–1940s). Antiquity 76, 200–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlanger, N., 2019. Recomposing identities: prehistory and human origins from Jan Christiaan Smuts to Thabo Mbeki. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 12, 22–30.Google Scholar
Schumaker, L., 2001. Africanizing Anthropology: Fieldwork, networks, and the making of cultural knowledge in Central Africa. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Shepherd, N., 2003. ‘When the hand that holds the trowel is black …’: disciplinary practices of self-representation and the issue of ‘native’ labour in archaeology. Journal of Social Archaeology 3(3), 334–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spivak, G.C., 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a history of the vanishing present. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoler, A., 2009. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic anxieties and colonial common sense. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stevenson, A., Libonati, E. & Baines, J., 2017. Introduction – object habits: legacies of fieldwork and the museum. Museum History Journal 10(2), 113–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stump, D., 2013. On applied archaeology, indigenous knowledge, and the usable past. Current Anthropology 54(3), 268–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weintroub, J., 2009. Sisters at the rockface – the Van der Riet twins and Dorothea Bleek's rock art research and publishing, 1932–1940. African Studies 68(3), 402–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilmsen, E.N & Denbow, J.R., 1999. Paradigmatic history of San-speaking peoples and current attempts at revision. Current Anthropology 31(5), 489–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wintjes, J., 2017. Frobenius discovered before crossing Limpopo Ruins, Ancient Fortificated Settlements, Beautiful Pottery Mountains Stop. de arte 52(1), 31–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witelson, D., 2018. Frogs or people: Dorothea Bleek and a genealogy of ideas in rock art research. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 53(2), 185–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar