Sankofa Archaeology: "Going Back" as an Afrodecolonial Methodology

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Black Studies and Archaeology" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Considering the urgent need to decolonize the field of archaeology, this work attempts to reformulate theoretical and methodological archaeological approaches based on Afroguianese and Afrodiasporic conceptions of time, space, materiality and knowledge. This re-understanding of the field of archaeology was provoked and defined by my own place as a seventh-generation descendant of Alais, an Afrikan woman who was taken captive and led to the shores of Mana, a town located in the Amazonian territory of Eastern Guiana, to date a contemporary colony of France. Within such an approach, the concept of “going back” appeared particularly crucial to rethinking what archaeology means, as well as the Afrodiasporic notions of orality, ancestrality, memory and seniority. Throughout this redefinition of what a meaningful archaeology can be to Afroguianese people, space was created for non-western knowledge systems, languages, and world-senses to thrive.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Black Studies and Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology