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Thinking through “Vernacular Cosmopolitanisms”: Historical Archaeology in Senegal and the Material Contours of the African Atlantic

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Abstract

This article draws on recent archaeological research on coastal Senegal to examine how the concept of “vernacular cosmopolitanism” can contribute to scholarship about the construction of cultural hybridity in West Africa during the Atlantic era. It argues that Senegambia between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries was a vibrant theater of international exchanges, and that archaeological examinations of these processes can both assist our understanding of regional history and enrich discussions about the African diaspora, diasporic identities, French imperialism, and Atlantic modernity. The study of material experiences can also raise critical questions about our conceptual categories and limits to our understanding of the Atlantic past.

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Acknowledgments

As all things academic (and archaeological), this article is a collective, composite piece of work, which emerged in dialogue with a number of friends and colleagues. Much of its insights derive, in one fashion or another, from conversations with Ibrahima Thiaw, who invited me to participate in the 2001 and 2007 field seasons on Gorée, and kindly agreed to let me use unpublished data from his archaeological work on the island. Thanks should go to Paul Diegert as well, for his original work of analysis and interpretation on the G1, G4, and G8 materials. The essay also benefited greatly from the critical readings of Shannon Dawdy, Mark Hauser, Ken Kelly, J. Cameron Monroe, and participants to the African Studies Workshop at the University of Chicago (with special nods to Jean and John Comaroff, Ralph Austen, Geneviève Godbout, Mudit Trivedi, Anita Hannig, and Kate McHarry, for their incisive comments, and encouraging to complicate the question of cosmopolitanism and contemplate the epistemological aspects of Atlantic history). I’m particularly grateful to Shannon Dawdy for her incomparable help with the sections on Louisiana archaeology and history, and for her suggestions about ‘Atlantic Creoles.’ Lastly, I’m thankful to Chuck Orser for his thoughtful feedback and editorial patience, and to two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. Naturally, I retain responsibility for all errors remaining in the text.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1126 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    François G. Richard

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  1. François G. Richard
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Correspondence to François G. Richard.

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Richard, F.G. Thinking through “Vernacular Cosmopolitanisms”: Historical Archaeology in Senegal and the Material Contours of the African Atlantic. Int J Histor Archaeol 17, 40–71 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-012-0207-9

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