عنوان

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC IN SENEGAL:

Number

LA113458

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC IN SENEGAL:

General Material Designation

[Article]

Other Title Information

REFLECTIONS ON DOING FIELDWORK AT HOME

First Statement of Responsibility

Ibrahima Thiaw

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Leiden

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Brill

Text of Note

In contrast to the practice of history that is deeply rooted in African societies in the form of oral traditions, to many Senegalese, archaeological inquiry is rather a strange and mysterious endeavor. Both text and speech are based on language and thus permit historians to draw correlations between documentary and oral based histories. For archaeologists however, the difficulty of finding a local intellectual endeavor that matches what they do remains a tedious task. They dig up dirt, collect useless discarded sherds and stones from ancient sites and garbage dumps, and open up other people's graves. What archaeologists do is locally associated with people suffering mental disability, thus putting a tremendous social pressure on local archaeologists. Recent interests in historical archaeology permitted us to distinguish two different attitudes of the public with respect to the archaeological past: a prehistoric past that is unclaimed and uncontested; and a recent historic past that is claimed and contested. While the history of archaeology in Senegal explains these public attitudes toward the archaeological past, the implications are extremely broad and pose problems of public outreach affecting the management of cultural resources, museums' exhibits, etc. In contrast to the practice of history that is deeply rooted in African societies in the form of oral traditions, to many Senegalese, archaeological inquiry is rather a strange and mysterious endeavor. Both text and speech are based on language and thus permit historians to draw correlations between documentary and oral based histories. For archaeologists however, the difficulty of finding a local intellectual endeavor that matches what they do remains a tedious task. They dig up dirt, collect useless discarded sherds and stones from ancient sites and garbage dumps, and open up other people's graves. What archaeologists do is locally associated with people suffering mental disability, thus putting a tremendous social pressure on local archaeologists. Recent interests in historical archaeology permitted us to distinguish two different attitudes of the public with respect to the archaeological past: a prehistoric past that is unclaimed and uncontested; and a recent historic past that is claimed and contested. While the history of archaeology in Senegal explains these public attitudes toward the archaeological past, the implications are extremely broad and pose problems of public outreach affecting the management of cultural resources, museums' exhibits, etc.

Date of Publication

2003

Physical description

215-225

Title

Journal of African Archaeology

Volume Number

1/2

International Standard Serial Number

2191-5784

Subject Term

Archaeology

Subject Term

cultural heritage

Subject Term

History

Subject Term

public outreach

Subject Term

Senegal

Ibrahima Thiaw

Call Number

10.3213/1612-1651-10010

Electronic name

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y