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Archaeology, Development and Conflict: A Case Study from the African Continent

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Abstract

Apart from wars, other contexts of social conflict have recently become a setting in which archaeologists are faced with acute, sometimes armed, violence. On the African continent, a region often overlooked in discussions of “archaeology in conflict”, rapid economic development has led to several such scenes. The paper discusses a particularly poignant example from the Middle Nile valley in Sudan, where large dam projects have been met with various levels of opposition by affected populations. Local communities opposing the construction of further planned dams on the Nile are increasingly stressing ‘cultural survival’ and fear of ‘developmental genocide’ as two of their major motivations for fighting these projects. Assuming a close link between the developer and archaeological salvage missions, affected people have started to use the expulsion of salvage teams from their territory as a strategy of resistance—posing an ethical dilemma for the archaeologists who struggle to find a position in the increasingly violent controversies accompanying these contested development projects.

Résumé

Depuis peu, les archéologues ont à faire face à une violence forte et parfois armée dans des contextes de conflits sociaux autres que les guerres. Sur le continent africain, une région du monde que les débats sur « l’archéologie en conflit » laissent souvent de côté, le développement économique rapide a créé diverses situations de ce type. Cet article discute de l’exemple particulièrement poignant de la vallée du Nil moyen, au Soudan, où des projets de barrages géants ont suscité divers degrés d’opposition de la part des populations affectées. Les communautés locales opposées à la construction de nouveaux barrages sur le Nil insistent sur deux motivations principales de leur lutte contre ces projets : la « survie culturelle » et la peur du « génocide par le développement » . Les populations affectées, supposant un lien étroit entre les promoteurs et les missions de préservation archéologique, ont commencé à adopter une stratégie de résistance consistant à expulser de leur territoire les équipes de préservation du patrimoine, posant ainsi une dilemme éthique aux archéologues qui ont bien du mal à trouver leur place dans ces controverses de plus en plus violentes autour des projets de développement contestés.

Resumen

Aparte de las guerras, otros contextos de conflicto social se han convertido recientemente en el escenario al que se enfrentan los arqueólogos con intensa violencia, algunas veces armada. En el continente africano, una región a menudo pasada por alto en los debates de la “arqueología en conflicto”, el rápido desarrollo económico ha llevado a varios de dichos escenarios. El presente documento trata de un ejemplo particularmente emotivo del valle Medio del Nilo en Sudán, donde grandes proyectos de presas se han encontrado con diversos niveles de oposición por parte de las poblaciones afectadas. Las comunidades locales que se oponen a la construcción de más presas planificadas en el Nilo están subrayando cada vez más la “supervivencia cultural” y el temor de un “genocidio del desarrollo” como sus principales motivaciones para oponerse a estos proyectos. Al asumir un vínculo estrecho entre el desarrollador y las misiones de salvamento arqueológico, las personas afectadas han empezado a utilizar la expulsión de los equipos de salvamento de su territorio como una estrategia de resistencia - planteando un dilema ético a los arqueólogos que se esfuerzan por encontrar una posición en las controversias cada vez más violentas que acompañan a estos proyectos de desarrollo cuestionados.

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Acknowledgments

The point of departure for this paper was a talk given at the 2010 Vienna conference on “Archaeology in Conflict”; an extended summary of this talk has been published in the conference proceedings in Forum Archaeologiae 55/VI (Näser and Kleinitz 2010b). The argument has been expanded on in Kleinitz and Näser 2011, and Näser and Kleinitz 2012. The present contribution includes further aspects of the study, which had been presented at various conferences over the past few years, starting with the 6th World Archaeological Congress (WAC6) in June 2008. Part of the research was undertaken within the study group ‘Archaeotopia’ of the Berlin Excellence Cluster TOPOI (Research Groups CSG-V and C-3).

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  1. Rock Art Research Institute (RARI), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Cornelia Kleinitz

  2. Department of Egyptology and Northeast African Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany

    Cornelia Kleinitz & Claudia Näser

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  1. Cornelia Kleinitz
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Correspondence to Claudia Näser.

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Kleinitz, C., Näser, C. Archaeology, Development and Conflict: A Case Study from the African Continent. Arch 9, 162–191 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-013-9227-2

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