Author Archives: Laura J. MITCHELL

About Laura J. MITCHELL

I teach African history, world history, and the Humanities Core Course at UC Irvine. My research explores relationships among societies and between humans and the natural world in Southern Africa--mostly in the eighteenth century.

Reflecting on “Foundations”

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Tomorrow’s workshop gives you a chance to think broadly about the ideas and historical processes we’ve covered so far this quarter. Temporally, we’ve covered a lot of ground–from about 3.5 million years ago through about 1000 C.E., with glances forward to think about how our understanding of early history affects present-day debates.

So far, the course material has focused on general processes. We’ve haven’t discussed individual historical actors or even focused very closely on specific communities or groups: historic Batwa and Bantu-speaking farmers are different–and harder to apprehend–than more clearly defined villages, groups of merchants, or states.

Thinking about the processes of early human settlement, the reasons behind interaction among different societies–especially Batwa and Bantu-speakers, and the diversity of African cultures is an important foundation for asking questions about the emergence of larger-scale states and long distance trade on the shores of the Sahara–which is where we turn next.

But first, the group workshop. The comments so far on the course website tell me that several of you have a good handle on the course material and are thinking through sophisticated questions about the significance of history and the consequences of political and economic hierarchies.

I look forward to reading your responses to the workshop questions. Feel free to ask questions, either through email or here on the course page.

Getting Specific about Historical Scholarship

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In tomorrow’s class, we will:

  1. identify Klieman’s conclusions about the expansion of Bantu speech communities in the western rain forest
  2. describe and explain specific contours of relationships between Batwa and Bantu-speaking farmers
  3. compare scholarly and popular descriptions of Batwa communities

Think about the following questions as you review Klieman’s Chapter 3 and prepare for class:

•How did early forest dwellers define the parameters of “Human”?
•What is the significance of matrilineality?
•What major socio/political structures does Klieman describe?
•What are the important cosmological/spiritual elements of Klieman’s description?
•Can you describe the “frontier interactions” significant to this chapter?
•What is the role of oral tradition in this analysis?
•What is Klieman trying to accomplish with this chapter?
•What are her major arguments?

Paths to the early past

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Last week we considered Paul Lane’s review of Miscast—a 1996 museum exhibition that asked viewers to consider the violent past and contested present of foraging and hunting communities in South Africa. (You can read other reviews here.)

This week, selections from Kairn Klieman’s The Pygmies were our Compass ask us to re-evaluate our understanding of hunting and foraging communities in west-central Africa, sometimes called Pygmies. Klieman also presents compelling evidence about the complicated, changing relationship between Pygmies/Batwa and Bantu-speaking farmers.

One of the problems that both Lane and Klieman point out is the stereotyped presumption that societies with clear connections to a long time horizon can be mistaken for representatives of primordial or timeless people:

“Modern-day subsistence strategies are taken as a model for those that existed in the Late Stone Age past, and the reader is left with the idea that there are societies in Africa that have remained unchanged through time.” (Klieman, xv)

Lane and Klieman, in conjunction with lectures and class discussion about human evolution and the formation of distinct societies in Africa raise a number of questions:

  • How are we able to get at evidence of early human history?
  • Are the histories of all communities treated with equal respect?
  • How can we get at the stories of groups marginalized in contexts where even powerful political and religious institutions didn’t leave clear evidence?

This short news article about chiseling out chunks of rock and moving “Eve’s footprints” from Langebaan to the South African Museum begs the question:

  • Who gets to keep the fossil record? Who gets to see it?

How do you respond to these issues? What questions do you have?

Origins + Stereotypes

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Tomorrow’s class has two sections:

  • Human Origins, Human Societies
  • Africa Past & Present: Confronting Stereotypes

If you’re looking for more information on human origins than we can cover in one class period, the Smithsonian website has fantastic resources. Locally, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana is currently hosting a traveling exhibition on Lucy, an Australopithecus afarensus fossil. The associated website, Becoming Human, is another rich resource. The exhibition will be in Orange County through April 28. I encourage you to visit.

The second part of class will be a discussion of Paul Lane’s exhibition review, “Breaking the Mould.” In addition to the study questions posted in the course outline, consider the following:

  • What are the venues in which we encounter information about Africa?
  • How do stereotypes shape public perceptions and understanding of cultures other than our own?

Throughout the quarter we will regularly have conversation about “Africa Past & Present”, connecting our study of early African history to contemporary events and issues.

Where to start?

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Why start a history course 3.5 million years ago, or even earlier?

I see a logic–not an attempt at torture–in trying to squeeze a few million years of history into 10 weeks of instruction, reading, and writing.

Starting to investigate and then tell a story about human relationships in Africa with “big geography” and an overview of human origins serves two goals:

  • It confirms some western preconceptions about “Africa” as a vast, unknowable space;
  • it challenges facile stereotypes about Africans as being relict objects of a “pre-history” that sets a tableau for the rest of humanity.

We’ll move quickly through the first millennia of human history in Africa–not to set the stage, but to anchor our understanding of past processes and events a long time horizon that enables us to ask profound questions about continuity and changes in human experience.

To get another scholar’s perspective on how this long view of history can be useful, see Jared Diamond‘s introductory essay in the September 2005 National Geographic.

Welcome

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The Spring 2013 edition of  History 134a | African Societies and Cultures is gearing up. Our first class meeting will be on Tuesday, 2 April in HH 143.

We have a full agenda for the first meeting:

  • course logistics and requirements
  • the first lecture: Situating “Africa” in Time, Space, and Western Imaginations

This class will be interactive, so come prepared to ask questions, write short responses, and look up information. If you have a wi-fi enabled device (laptop, tablet, phone) you are welcome to bring it to class *to use for in-class assignments.*

We will use Colin McEvedy’s The Penguin Atlas of African History in the first class and many others after that. It will be on reserve in Langson, but it will useful to have a copy with you in class so you can make notes directly on the maps (it is available new from Amazon.com for under $10; used from the UCI bookstore for the same price). I will also project maps, and you can share with classmates. So don’t let the absence of the book keep you from class on Tuesday. We will likely get through the first nine maps (to 660 B.C.E.) in the first class. Feel free to take a look at those, and familiarize yourself with the accompanying text (though there is not a formal reading assignment for Tuesday). Don’t be alarmed by the long time span. We’ll cover a lot of deep background in the first week, but the majority of the course deals with events after 1000 C.E.

Please read the syllabus (or carefully browse the course website, which presents the information in another format) before class.

I look forward to meeting you all on Tuesday.