Social Change and Continuity in a Shatter Zone

卡梅隆·戈基博士(阿巴拉契亚州立大学)将领导考古研究，研究大西洋奴隶贸易对西非村庄社区的影响。数量不多的历史资料描述了这些社区如何抗击或逃离奴隶掠夺者，但一个关键问题仍然没有得到回答--这些战略如何改变大西洋世界边缘社会之间的政治、经济和文化关系？考古学通过研究17-18世纪大西洋奴隶贸易兴起之前、期间和之后村落社区内部和之间社会关系变化的证据，很好地回答了这个问题。更广泛地说，这项研究将为非洲人和散居在美洲的非洲人共同经历的暴力社会分裂的历史原因和后果提供新的线索。更具体地说，它将促进大学生的创新研究机会和与当地社区的公共外联合作，包括在该地区的教科文组织世界遗产文化中心安装博物馆展览。通过探索当地对全球进程的长期反应，这项研究还可以为美国在非洲农村和现代世界体系外围其他地区的政治和经济参与提供前瞻性方法。Gokee博士和他的研究团队将研究大西洋奴隶贸易如何影响西非“帽子区”的社会生活--在这个地区，人们战斗、逃离和/或加入邻国掠夺性的政治经济。该项目将以塞内加尔东部的班达法西地区为重点，确定在过去几个世纪中，哪些人可以被谁奴役以及在什么条件下被奴役的社会规则。研究人员将通过景观调查和对过去村庄遗址的详细绘制来识别这些模式，包括与商人和民兵有关的河边地点，以及与躲避他们的人有关的高地定居点。对这些遗址的文物的分析，包括对陶器的微观研究，将记录生产和交易的经济过程如何塑造不同村庄社区内部和之间的社会关系。然后，对陶器样本的专门收集和发光测年将揭示班达法西的村庄社会如何随着时间的推移而变化，特别是对17-18世纪大西洋奴隶贸易的回应。这些方法将产生新的数据，以便更好地模拟过去和现在全球力量如何影响破碎地区的当地社区，同时也为美国和塞内加尔的公共宣传和学生教育和研究提供新的机会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Dr. Cameron Gokee (Appalachian State University) will lead archaeological research to study the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on village communities in West Africa. Historical sources, which are few in number, describe how these communities fought or fled slave raiders, but a key question remains unanswered - how did these strategies transform political, economic, and cultural relations among societies on the edge of the Atlantic world? Archaeology is well-placed to answer this question by examining evidence for changing social relations within and between village communities before, during, and after the rise of the Atlantic slave trade in the 17-18th centuries. Most broadly, this research will cast new light on the historical causes and consequences of a violent social rupture shared by both Africans and the African Diaspora in the Americas. More specifically, it will foster innovative research opportunities for university students and public outreach collaborations with local communities, including the installation of a museum exhibit at a UNESCO world heritage cultural center in the region. By exploring local responses to global processes over the long-term, this research can also inform forward-looking approaches to US political and economic engagement in rural Africa and other regions on the periphery of the modern world system. Dr. Gokee and his research team will examine how the Atlantic slave trade impacted social life in a West African "hatter zone" - a region where people fought, fled, and/or joined the predatory political economies of neighboring states. Focusing on the Bandafassi region of eastern Senegal, this project will identify the social rules of of inclusion and exclusion that defined who could be enslaved by whom, and under what conditions, over the past several centuries. Researchers will identify these patterns through landscape survey and detailed mapping of past village sites, including riverside locales associated with merchants and militias and highland settlements associated with the people avoiding them. Analyses of the artifacts from these sites, including a microscopic study of pottery, will document how economic processes of production and exchange also shaped the social relations within and between different village communities. The specialized collection and luminescence dating of pottery samples will then reveal how the village societies of Bandafassi did or did not change over time, particularly in response to the Atlantic slave trade in the 17-18th centuries. These methods will generate new data for better modelling how global forces impact local communities in shatter zones past and present, while also providing novel opportunities for public outreach and student education and research in the US and Senegal.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.