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Archaeology, Ethnology,
Technology, Trade, Urbanism; Africa
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Current Research
- Past Research - Selected Publications
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| Personal
Statement |
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I have served as Curator of African Archaeology and
Ethnology at the Field Museum since 1994. I serve on the
Museum’s Scholarship Committee and Science Advisory
Council. I am also an Adjunct faculty member in the Departments
of Anthropology at Northwestern University and the University of
Illinois at Chicago.
I am involved in a number of disciplinary and interdisciplinary field
and collection-based research projects as well as interdisciplinary and
interdepartmental research projects. I have been actively involved in
student teaching and mentoring in collection-based, laboratory, and
field research. Furthermore, I have initiated international
collaborative programs with colleagues at the National Museums of
Kenya, Kenya Wildlife Services, Deccan College, India, and Pardubice
University, Czech Republic. I have also been actively involved in
collection management and exhibit planning and development. The
research programs I brought with me to Museum as well as those I have
initiated have enhanced and complemented those of the Museum’s
faculty and the Anthropology Program at the University of Illinois.
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| Current
Research |
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 My research agenda focuses on the role of economy, technology, and
politics in the development of urban societies. In East Africa, I
study the origins of urbanism and its influence in East African
history. In India, I am studying the role of South Asian merchants on
African urbanism. In the Czech Republic, I am studying the rural
responses to global economic and political transformations.
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 My
research has been supported by grants from the National Science
Foundation (1990-91, 1996-98, 2000-2002, 2003-2004), The Wenner-Gren
Foundation for Anthropological Research (1990-91), National Geographic
Society (1996-98), Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and
Ireland (1990), Eli Lilly Foundation (1998), Chicago 2020 (2000), and
the Norwottock Charitable Trust (2005).
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| Past
Research |
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 In 1995 I began a collection-based study of the
Linton Madagascar collection at The Field Museum in collaboration with
Bennet Bronson. The Linton collection includes nearly 3,700 items from
all the main ethnic divisions of Madagascar. Bennet Bronson, J. Claire Odland, and I published a
study of the textiles in 2004: Unwrapping the Textile Traditions of Madagascar.
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| Selected
Publications |
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2005 (With Sibel B. Kusimba) Mosaics and Interactions: East Africa, 2000 B.P. to the Present. In African Archaeology: A Critical Introduction. Ann B. Stahl, ed. Pp. 392-419. Malden: Blackwell.
2004 (Edited with J. Claire Odland and Bennet Bronson)
Unwrapping the Textile Traditions of Madagascar. Los Angeles: UCLA
Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
2004 Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa. African Archaeological Review 21(2):59-88.
2004 Printed and Dyed Textiles From Africa. Visual Anthropology 17(2):197-198.
2003 (Edited with Sibel B. Kusimba) East African Archaeology:
Foragers, Potters, Smiths, and Traders. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
2003 (With John Terrell, John P. Hart, Sibel Barut, Nicoletta Cellinese,
L. Antonio Curet, Tim Denham, Kyle Latinis, Rahul
Oka, Joel Palka, Mary E. D. Pohl, Kevin O. Pope, Patrick Ryan Williams,
Helen Haines, and John E. Staller) Domesticated Landscapes: The
Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication. Journal of
Archaeological Method and Theory 10:323-368.
1999 The Rise and Fall of Swahili States. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
1998 (With Bennet Bronson) Comments on the Recommendations of
ICOM Working Groups 1 and 2 Concerning the Protection of African
Heritage. Museum Anthropology 22(2):85-86.
1997 (With Peter R. Schimdt) The Culture and Technology of African Iron Production. American Anthropologist 99(2):437.
1996 Spatial Organization at Swahili Archaeological Sites in Kenya. In
Aspects of African Archaeology: Papers From the 10th Congress of the
PanAfrican Association for Prehistory and Related Studies. Gilbert
Pwiti and Robert Soper, eds. Pp. 703-713. Harare: University of
Zimbabwe Publications.
1996 Ancestor Worship and Divine Kingship in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Egypt in Africa. Theodore Celenko, ed. Pp. 59-81. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art.
1996 Animal Deities and Symbols in Africa. In Egypt in Africa. Theodore Celenko, ed. Pp. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art.
1996 Kenya's Destruction of the Swahili Cultural Heritage. In Plundering Africa's Past. Peter R. Schmidt and Roderick J. McIntosh, eds. Pp. 201-224. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
1996 Archaeology in African Museums. African Archaeological Review 13(3):165-170.
1994 The Social Context of Iron Forging in the Kenya Coast. Toronto: African Studies Association.
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