When knowledges meet: Engagements with clay and soil in southern Africa

Abstract

In what ways do meetings between differing knowledges of the material world involve change to people's engagements with their immediate, everyday surroundings? And may our insights from studies of such dynamics inform archaeological thinking and practice in fruitful ways without unwillingly projecting ideas and concepts specific to western post-Enlightenment thinking? By combining archaeological and anthropological insights with African philosophical critique, this article presents an approach which aims to enable understanding of the materiality of dwelled-in spaces which is context dependent, seeks symmetry in human/non-human interaction instead of asymmetry, contests the continued prioritizing of cognitive dimensions of knowledge, and acknowledges feminist and Africanist critique of universalist notions of science. Sensitive to epistemological and ethical concerns with ethnoarchaeology, the article discusses certain contrasts that emerged from two field studies in Botswana, and how these insights may inform our archaeological interpretations of the Later Iron Age in southern Africa.

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