CAS Public Seminar: Prof Ann Stahl, University of Victoria, Canada - Co-creating “Effective” Archaeologies: Reflections from a Digital Heritage Initiative in Banda, Ghana

This event was part of the Michaelmas Term 2019 Public Seminar Series on the theme of 'Archaeology, Heritage, and the decolonization of Africa’s Past'. Community-engaged and participatory methods are becoming more common as archaeologists work to find ways to enhance the relevance of their research to their host communities and wider publics. While we should not expect there to be formulaic pathways for doing so, we describe the ways in which--with support from a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Development Grant entitled “Improving African Futures Using Lessons from the Past”--we are working to co-create “effective” archaeologies in a Ghanaian context. Guided by community consultations, we focus particularly on our strategies for sustainably archiving and making appropriately accessible Banda Research Project archives. We describe the ways in which community members are putting these resources to work in heritage initiatives mobilized by a concern to revitalize local knowledge and enhance connections between youth and elders. Though still a work in progress, we use this example to reflect on broader strategies for building bridges between academic and community knowledge systems.