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Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to discuss the potential future collaborative pathways between history and anthropology in strong association with material culture and archaeology, and how it can enrich community histories and collaboration by taking the research into Kenya’s Ilchamus community as an example.

Paper long abstract:

Few regions offer as much potential as Africa for interdisciplinary study of the past through analysis of archaeological, historical, linguistic, ethnographic, and anthropological sources. Particularly for the recent history, the varied sources offer the possibility to weave together a detailed interpretation of the past from multiple strands of independent corroborating, but also contradictory, evidence. Despite such potential, the insights that can be drawn from careful scrutiny of Africa’s later history by including material culture and the materiality of things remain poorly developed.

This paper aims to discuss how material culture, archaeology in combination with anthropology and history can create fertile grounds to enrich and elaborate the recent past by tracing ethnogenesis and identity change, environmental degradation and conservation, and economic prosperity and decline. Its intent is to stimulate cross-disciplinary interaction between archaeology, history and anthropology, which currently mostly follow separate lines of research on the continent, and create research pathways that constructively engage with contemporary political issues and promote participation in local research contexts.

The paper will show how transdisciplinary research into the 200-year history of Kenya’s Ilchamus community, the different immigrations, and subsistence changes reveal interesting processes and social ideals that shaped and continue to shape their identity, and how ‘the material and tangible’ history is considered key as they find their place in Kenya’s socio-political landscape and prepare for a future where their identity is uncertain.