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SUMMARY:Decolonising Archaeological Practice Beyond Community Engagement: 
 towards a theory of the future - Prof Innocent Pikirayi\, University of Pr
 etoria
DTSTART:20210513T150000Z
DTEND:20210513T163000Z
UID:TALK160081@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lydia Clough
DESCRIPTION:In 2016\, Peter Schmidt and I published an edited volume on de
 colonizing archaeological practice in Africa. Coincidentally\, this was on
  the eve of some of the most violent student protests in South Africa\, wh
 ich called for\, among other things\, a decolonization of universities and
  knowledge production in Africa. While contributors to the volume emphasiz
 ed the need to integrate local and descendant communities in archaeologica
 l practice\, we may not have provided a definitive answer to what constitu
 tes a decolonized archaeology in an African context. In this seminar\, I d
 iscuss decolonization in terms of epistemology\, pedagogy and methodology\
 , to better articulate contemporary archaeological theory\, communicate th
 e discipline to non-specialists\, and\, to rethink approaches that are app
 ropriate when collecting data. Since decolonisation invokes matters theore
 tical\, I loosely employ Rosemary Joyce’s Languages of Archaeology (2002
 ) to provide a critical examination of the relationship between archaeolog
 y and the approaches used to communicate to non-professionals. Since archa
 eologists work with communities\, I go beyond this and call upon a theory 
 of the future that premise many “realities\,” congruent with historica
 l experiences\, languages\, and habitus. I pose the question whether archa
 eologists can recognize and draw upon local as well as Western realities i
 n working towards inference towards best explanation and conclude by stres
 sing that listening to our peers in other societies strengthens archaeolog
 ical practices and interpretations of data.\n\nThis presentation will be o
 n Zoom. \n\nPlease register via the following link: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom
 .us/meeting/register/tJAtdOCsrDwsHd0NJIZcCn38uo8jjt2uz-Aw
LOCATION:Zoom
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