Practical knowledge and politics of encounter along the Lower Falémé River, Senegambia (c. AD 1500–1925)

Abstract

Beyond the growing entanglement of African and European worlds, the Atlantic era also witnessed transformations in the economic institutions, political regimes, and social identities that inhered between African societies, such as those of the interior of Senegambia. This paper traces how such historical processes both emerged from and shaped the quotidian practices and encounters manifest in the production of earthenware pottery along the eastern frontier of Bundu, an Islamic Fulbe state (almaamate) that arose and grew to incorporate diverse Mande communities from the seventeenth to early twentieth centuries. Drawing upon recent insights from ceramic ethnoarchaeology in Africa, an analysis of pottery production techniques (clay procurement and processing, shaping, decoration and firing) suggests that potters from distinct cultural traditions, but of similar class, began to share technical knowledge in spheres both public and private during Bundu's expansion. At the same time, patterns of pottery consumption point to the convergence of tastes, not only for imported European commodities, but also for the locally produced goods employed on a day-to-day basis by disparate communities within a fluid political regime.