Outsiders and Strangers

The value of this book lies not only in its contributions to West African archaeology, but importantly in those it makes to the comparative studies of the archaeology and history of ancient complex societies worldwide. Haour indeed offers us a great deal to think about in this tightly focused, insightful and nicely crafted book.

Auteur

Anne Haour is a Reader in the Arts & Archaeology of Africa at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. An archaeologist with a background in anthropology, she has written widely on the West African past and developed theoretical questions in several publications.

Texte du rabat

Asking what archaeology can bring to the debate on liminal peoples in West African societies, and drawing together for the first time the extensive literature on the subject of outsiders, this volume looks in detail at the role outsiders played in the past 1000 years of the West African past, in particular in the construction of great empires.

Résumé
Studies of liminality have a long history in anthropology. In archaeology, identifying past people - rather than faceless entities - through material culture is still a work in progress, but a project that has seen increased attention in recent years. Focusing on West Africa, this book argues that we should explore what happens when the primary label assigned to a person's identity is that of an outsider - when he or she is of, but not in, society. Such outsiders can be found everywhere in the West African past: rulers show off their foreign descent, traders migrate to new areas, potters and blacksmiths claim to be apart from society. Thus far, however, it is mainly historians and anthropologists who have tackled the question of outsiders or liminal people. This book asks what archaeology can bring to the debate, and drawing together for the first time the extensive literature on the subject of outsiders, looks in detail at the role they played in the past 1000 years of the West African past, in particular in the construction of great empires.

Contenu

• Preface

• Acknowledgments

• List of Figures

• 1: Introduction

• 2: Rulers from Afar

• 3: Strangers, Traders

• 4: Craft Specialists

• 5: Empires

• 6: Conclusion

• Bibliography

• Index