Comparing Craft and Culinary Practice in Africa: Themes and Perspectives

Abstract

The collection of papers presented in this special issue of the African ArchaeologicalReview emerged out of a session entitled “Making Meals, Producing Pots: ComparingCraft and Culinary Practice in Africa” held at the 2012 Society for AfricanistArchaeology (SAfA) biennial meetings in Toronto. While archaeologists work-ing in Africa and elsewhere have often focused on either crafts or foodways,participants in the session sought to explore vital points of intersection betweenthese strongly material and deeply embodied technologies of daily life. Buildingupon several excellent case studies (e.g.,Ashley2010; Gosselain 2010; Haaland2007, 2012; Lyons and D’Andrea 2003; Maclean and Insoll 1999, 2003), weconsidered the ways in which craft andculinary practices together entailcultural knowledge, skills, and techniques for transforming raw materials intofood, drink, pots, metals, cloth, and other sundries consumed and displayed ona day-to-day basis. We also explored the nuanced ways in which foods andcrafts shape diverse subjectivities and materialize social distinctions betweenwomen and men, chiefs and commoners, and foreigners and locals, even asshared practices and tastes act as the glue that binds disparate groups together.The contributions to this issue further highlight how knowledge of crafting andfarming practices, as well as their products, are enrolled in the exercise ofpolitical power. We take the opportunity in this editorial introduction to expandbriefly on these and related themes that weave through the followingethnoarchaeological and archaeological case studies comparing craft and culinarypractices in Africa.