16 research outputs found
Molecular and isotopic evidence for milk, meat and plants in prehistoric eastern African herder food systems reveal changing selective contexts for lactase persistence
Museums in Kenya: spaces for selecting, ordering and erasing memories of identity and nationhood
This article discusses representations of ânationhoodâ at National Museums of Kenya (NMK) and community peace museums (CPMs). The representations range from a virtual absence of exhibitions on nationhood to exhibitions of cultural objects associated with specific ethnic groups and commemoration of local and/or national heroes. The representations at NMK appear to be informed by the expressed and/or assumed wishes of the country's political leadership. As such, the social memory they evoke has suffered episodic interruptions through time. On the other hand, representations at CPMs are, to a large extent, informed by influential individuals or small sections of the community and tend to concentrate on the ethnic group within which they are located, thus articulating local as opposed to national issues. This situation contributes to contestations of ânationhoodâ in Kenya, a phenomenon that has come to the fore with every general election since the re-introduction of multi-party politics 20 years ago and, in particular, with the 2007/08 post-election violence
Turning the Chapter: The Case for a National Museum of Shame As a Deterrent to Human Rights Abuses in Kenya
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Neolithic/Iron Age subsidence economies in the Lake Victoria Basin of East Africa
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Holocene foragers, fishers and herders of Western Kenya
Using evidence from the site of Gogo Falls in the Lake Victoria basin, Karega-Munene is able to reach more general conclusions about the nature of subsistence activities in East Africa as a whole between the Neolithic and Iron Age. This report discusses artefactual and faunal evidence from the site, its geographical, enviromental and climatic setting, and patterns of land use, human settlement and the exploitation of animal and plant resources
The East African Neolithic: An alternative view
The East African Neolithic has been attributed to the migration of food- producing populations from the Sudan and Ethiopia. The migrants are thought to have entered the region via northern Kenya. Attempts have been made not only to reconstruct the routes taken by those migrants, but also to establish their linguistic and/or ethnic identity. These attempts have treated Neolithic pottery âwaresâ as discrete cultural entities and correlated them with specific linguistic and/or ethnic groups. The main problem with this approach is that it minimizes the contribution that contact and exchange or trade may have made to culture change. It also denies the groups concerned the dynamism that appears to have characterized their relationships with each other and with their environment. The present paper offers an alternative interpretation of the Neolithic phenomenon. The similarities and differences in material culture, like the ones that have been used to define the pottery âwaresâ in question, are reflections of the dynamic relationships that existed between the people responsible for its production and consumption. Production and consumption of the âwaresâ could have taken place among individuals living in a given area or among different villages or communities living as far apart as the Central Rift and the Lake Victoria basin
Postcolonial Archaeologies in Africa: Breaking the Silence
Postcolonial archaeologies in Africa are engaged in a variety of agendas
including the decolonization of everyday practices in the field and in the classroom.
Postcolonial theory, concerned with issues of power and the Other, is increasingly
being invoked to examine how archaeologists conduct their field research and how
archaeology is used to dismantle essentialized historiesâthe metanarratives that
arose in the colonial as well as the postcolonial era. Easily misunderstood, however,
is the passion expressed by some African archaeologists who are voicing their own
views while simultaneously trying to free themselves from dominating âexpertâ
voices. These occurrences create tensions in archaeological discourse that are a
natural part of decolonizing archaeology, joining other forms of disenchantment,
particularly the disenchantments arising in contemporary African communities about
social services, civil society, and human rights. Archaeologists are also implicated
in disenchantments as they conduct investigations in the midst of people who may
be without water or are suffering from HIV/AIDSâconditions that starkly contrast
with their own comfortable lives. We may also need to reconsider how to deal
with states that see archaeological research as contrary to nation building. This
essay responds to some current misunderstandings that have arisen over these and
related issues
Reenacting Heritage at Bomas of Kenya: Dancing the Postcolony
This article deals with the representation of Kenyan national identity through dance. It analyses the reenactment of a series of ethnic dances at Bomas of Kenya, a cultural center located just outside Nairobi and part of the network of National Museums of Kenya. As an institution resulting from a strategic political investment in both Kenya's immaterial heritage and the tourist industry, since its inception in the early 1970s Bomas of Kenya has played an important role in conveying the idea of ethnic harmony and national unity. The comparison with Cut Off My Tongue (2009), the show by Kenyan writer and performer Sitawa Namwalie in which dance is interwoven with political satire to frame reflections on negative ethnicity, serves to highlight the implications that different approaches to dancing bodies, through such concepts as identity, embodiment, archive, and memory, could have for a meaningful political future