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Outsiders and Strangers: An Archaeology of Liminality in West Africa
Contributor(s): Haour, Anne (Author)
ISBN: 0199697744     ISBN-13: 9780199697748
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
OUR PRICE:   $133.00  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: September 2013
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Africa - West
- Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social
- Social Science | Archaeology
Dewey: 306.096
LCCN: 2013474032
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 5.7" W x 8.6" (0.80 lbs) 222 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - West Africa
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Studies of liminality have a long history in anthropology. In archaeology, identifying past people - rather than faceless entities - through material culture is still a work in progress, but a project that has seen increased attention in recent years. Focusing on West Africa, this book argues
that we should explore what happens when the primary label assigned to a person's identity is that of an outsider - when he or she is of, but not in, society. Such outsiders can be found everywhere in the West African past: rulers show off their foreign descent, traders migrate to new areas, potters
and blacksmiths claim to be apart from society.

Thus far, however, it is mainly historians and anthropologists who have tackled the question of outsiders or liminal people. This book asks what archaeology can bring to the debate, and drawing together for the first time the extensive literature on the subject of outsiders, looks in detail at the
role they played in the past 1000 years of the West African past, in particular in the construction of great empires.