As a non-native learner and speaker of Amharic, English, and Swahili, I have taken several journeys between these languages and my mother tongue, Tigrinya. Considering geopolitical domination and subordination, the passages between Amharic and Tigrinya or Swahili and Tigrinya are fewer than between English and Tigrinya. However, all crossings have similar purposes: to improve my comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing skills of these languages. In writing this post, I have taken a journey that merges Tigrinya and English in the service of two critical questions: 1) what role would a journey between two languages play in the process of thinking and writing about decolonizing archaeology?  2) What would the traveler feel and experience?

This journey took a few days to begin answering these two questions, but the first two days make the foundation of this and any future journeys.

Day one: On a notebook using a mechanical pencil I wrote the title “ናጽነት ናይ ስነጥንቲ መጽናእቲ” in ትግርኛ (Tigrinya), a Semitic language spoken by around 7 million people from the central region of Eritrea and from the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. The literal translation of the title in English is: “liberating the study of ancient times”.  Then I switched into English, and typed on the computer the tittle: “decolonizing archaeology”.

I continued in English. I wrote:

I am invited to write about decolonizing archaeology. I can write something; I have lived experience of becoming an African archaeologist. But my body feels stiff, and my mind refuses to think anything about archaeology. My inner voice is interrogating me: why should I write about something that is not even going to help most ordinary African people?  Why should I write about decolonizing archaeology when the entire process of archaeology continues to be colonial?  And why should I write about decolonizing archaeology in a lingua franca that still exhibits imperialism?  For whom do I write it anyway? As my inner voice interrogates me, I feel numbed and frustrated. I also feel fear of judgement by my colleagues and probably jeopardizing my career. I feel lack of energy because I feel the systemic trap. I feel worthless. I have no source of income. If I can’t afford my basic daily needs, why should I care about archaeology?  My passion for African Archaeology and my doctoral degree in Anthropology could mean nothing if I cannot earn a living from them.

I couldn’t take the negativity. I stopped there!

Then I switched to Tigrinya mode. I stared the notebook and constantly placed the pencil hoping to write something. After about 45 minutes of silence, I decided to write whatever came to my mind.  I only wrote these few sentences:

ብቋንቋ ትግርኛ ብዛዕባ ሓርነትን ናጽነትን ናይ ስነጥንቲ ክጽሕፍ ኢለ ክሓስብ ከለኩ ኩቱር ፍርሒ ወይ ድማ ዘይብዓት ይስምዓኒ። ምክንያቱ ብትግርኛ ንሰድራቤተየን ንቤተሰበይን ንምሓዙተይን እንተ ዘይኮይኑ ንሓፋሽ ወይ ድማ ንናይ መንግስቲ ቤትጽሕፈት ብ ውሕድ እየ ተጠቂመሉ ዝፈልጥ። ኣብ ሑቡራት ኣመሪካ ንትምሕርቲ ኢለ ካብ ዝመጽእ እሞ እንትርፎ እቶም ትግርኛ ዝዛረቡ ምሓዙተይ ኣብ ዝተፈላለያ ሃገራት ዘሎው ክማኡውን ን ኣብ ኤርትራ ዘሎው ስድራቤተይ እንተዘይ ኮይኑ ብእንግሊዝ እየ ዝዛረብ ኔረ። ኣብዘን ክልተ ዖመት ግን ናይ ቀረባ ቤተሰብ ናብ ኣመሪካ ስለዝመጻኡ ምብዛሕታኡ ጊዜ ብ ትግርንኛ ይዛረብ ኣለኩ።

When I imagine writing in Tigrinya about freedom and independence of the study of ancient times, I feel a strong fear and inadequacy. Because other than communicating with my family, relatives, and friends, I rarely used Tigrinya for public purposes and governmental offices. After I came to the United States, I have used English in daily activities, except whenever I talked to my family in Eritrea and with my Tigrinya speaking friends in different countries. However, in the last two years, since my close relatives came to the United States, most of the time I have been speaking in Tigrinya.

In the few hour’s solitary journey, writing in Tigrinya and English exposed my troubled relationship with and dissatisfaction of archaeology, and my inadequacy and fear of communicating to the Tigrinya speaking communities. Basically, I feel an outsider to archaeology, an outsider to English, and an outsider to Tigrinya. An outsider to archaeology because I know archaeology rarely has relevance to the community I belong. An outsider to English because I am exhausted by the time I spend learning the language and constantly visiting dictionaries, thesaurus, and grammar books and websites. Surprisingly, I do enjoy the learning process and never gave up. But the energy I spend in the process pains me a lot. Despite all the years I spend mastering the language, I am still an outsider looking up to native and privileged English speakers for guidance, and I strongly feel both intellectual discrimination and linguistic dependency. I feel a stranger in my native Tigrinya culture because I am not familiar with its systems of thought of and writing about ancient times, and I was never taught about it in formal education. This experience discloses my intra ethno-linguistic and intellectual alienation.

Another intrinsic observation I noticed in this self-evaluative process is that the language selected for writing dictates the writer’s imagined audience. My imagined audience as I write in English are archaeologists, museum and antiquities professionals, funding organizations, governments, universities, and anyone who speaks English (an ambiguous global public). As I write in Tigrinya, I first imagined a specific region and a specific group of people. It includes families, villages, regions, national institutions, universities, practitioners, students, and binational audiences. In the process, I tolerate contemporary political and regional differences and focus on cultural, linguistic, and historical similarities.

Day Two: With these insights, on the second day, I came to terms with my inner voice. I wrote one paragraph in English and three paragraphs in Tigrinya. In the English paragraph, I argue that decolonizing archaeology in African countries should “start with national institutions responsible for understanding and guiding archaeological activities.” My writing highlights how post-colonial national institutions inherited archaeology without questioning its relevance and how the concept of seniority in African cultures serves as means of upholding these colonial legacies. It also notes the post-colonial transformation of these national institutions where Africans work as personnel of these institutions, and foreigners still hold the power of the knowledge and language that guides these institutions. In general, the paragraph presents a structural analysis of decolonizing archaeology in African countries to a specific group who are knowledgeable of archaeology by highlighting power, intellectual, and linguistic dependency.

In the three paragraphs of journey in Tigrinya, I started by asking questions.  The first paragraph covers the meaning of ስነጥንቲ (about ancient times), reasons for studying ስነጥንቲ, and how to know about ስነጥንቲ. It is only after I made attempts to answer these ontological and epistemological questions of ስነጥንቲ, I moved to writing my personal narrative of how I learned about my country’s history, my ethnic group history, my parent’s place of origin, and the history of their village and its region. The second paragraph emphasizes the domination of foreign systems of thought and knowledge production of ancient history in Eritrea and neighboring countries, whereas past and contemporary local and regional systems of thought and knowledge of ancient history are yet to be written. The third paragraph captures training provided to educate Africans (Tigrinya speakers) about ስነጥንቲ in higher education and how they became part of the Western intellectual communities. Consequently, ስነጥንቲ local professionals take the responsibilities to educate their communities about ስነጥንቲ rather than to learn from their communities. Given these reasons, I (as a member of the community) argue that the study of ancient history in Eritrea and neighboring countries needs liberation. I also beg and plead these countries’ scholars of ስነጥንቲ to focus on local, national, and regional relevance.

As an active learner, I got in touch with the Tigrinya script and literature. Using this website (http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/tigrinya.htm), I restudied the Tigrinya alphabet and punctuation rules and learned how to type in Tigrinya using the Tigrinya Keyboard. To do so, I studied the coordination between English and Tigrinya alphabets. It was a very interactive and fulfilling experience. I regained my reading, writing, and typing skills in Tigrinya. In the process, I have appreciated the technological and software developments and their contributions in the process of decolonizing and transforming knowledge production and power.

In this personal journey, I identified intellectual, linguistic, and cultural identity dislocation and flexibility, and how to reclaim native cultural, linguistic, and intellectual belongingness. In my case, it means how to regain and relocate my belongingness in the Tigrinya culture and how to gain respect, dignity, and confidence in the journey of global academic and professional culture. The journey reveals more about how a thinking and writing journey between two languages serves as a decolonizing and relocating process.  Decolonizing and transformation are intertwined and interlinked processes that require collaboration, including linguistic. In the beginning, writing in Tigrinya takes a lot of time and is meticulous, but once the task is over it is rewarding and makes the writer relevant and worthy. It is a healing and calming process for the pain and hopelessness I feel when writing only in English. It becomes hope rather than despair.

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to Uzma Z. Rizvi for her support and for bringing the topic to my attention. I would also like to thank M. Dores Cruz.

Bio:

Asmeret Ghebreigziabiher Mehari has a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Florida. In 2001 graduated with a B.A. in archaeology from the University of Asmara, Eritrea. Between 2000 and 2002, she participated in and supervised several archaeological surveys and excavations in the Greater Asmara area in Eritrea, as part of her national service at the National Museum of Eritrea. She has published her research in several academic venues including a co-authored chapter in an edited volume, Community Archaeology and Heritage in Africa: Decolonizing practice, by Peter R. Schmidt and Innocent Pikirayi.

Decolonisation can be understood as the process that decolonises what was colonised; not what was used to colonise. Therefore, it is absurd to think that anthropology can be used as a tool to decolonise because it was used to colonise. We need to unthink anthropology and imagine something like decolonised ethnic studies, which Maldonado-Torres explains as: “studies of and from the lived experience of the damned, that are able not only to offer positivistic analysis and corrected facts about certain communities but can also offer a radical critique of the sciences.” (2009:127)

As part of my doctoral studies, I am doing fieldwork in Vryheid, a small town in KwaZulu-Natal, which is one of the nine provinces in South Africa. On the first Sunday of my fieldwork, my cousin invited me to her church; one of those African independent churches. What really caught my attention as I entered the church was the seating arrangement: There were sections of rows that faced the front of the church. The rows on the left-hand side were designated to women and those on the right-hand side to young women and children. In front of the row that was designated to young women and children, was a row of chairs that faced the left-hand side of the church; these chairs were designated to men.  There was a table and two chairs in front for the pastor and her assistant and the pulpit was next to this table. There were exactly 22 people in the church that day and only three of them were men (an old man and two young men); therefore, the chairs in the front row were mostly empty. What was also interesting is that all the women greeted the men first before they greeted one another. Even the woman pastor, greeted the old man and then the two young men before she greeted the remainder of the congregation. It did not make sense to me that the women would begin by greeting the men who clearly were not there at the expense of women. This was disturbing to me, but I tried to forget about the incident as I left the church, since it was not part of my research interest; and I also did not have anyone with whom I could discuss these issues.

When we went to the church again, only the old man was present.  I wondered where the two young men were; they received so much attention, why did they not come back? I really felt sorry for the women who are clearly doing everything possible to make the men feel welcome in church, yet they were not interested. This reminded me of my own efforts to restore failed relationships with men in an attempt to fit in according to the social standards informed by the dominant discourse of patriarchy. maybe the difference is that my efforts were not consistent; and often infused with the logic that as the privileged class, men were in a better position and there was no need for me to support, nurture and “make” them.  These ideas were cemented once I was removed from the community and then they became just the ‘black condition’. Everything seemed too abstract, complex and unreal; and it required some ‘objectivity and critical thinking’ rather than just a response.

But, black conditions are part of the life and the experiences of women in this church. They have seen things we might never see; they have lived without men and were forced to play the role of men and women; they understand the vulnerability of not having the protection and support of their male counterparts; they know the pain of seeing how men are being sent away to work just to return and die in their hands; they have experienced the system that turns men into monsters; they live in a world where murder and rape is part of their existence; they have witnessed the dehumanisation of the black race where gender collapses; and they live in a society which Aimé Césaire defines as “drained of their essence cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, land confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creation destroyed, extraordinary possibility wiped out.” (1972: 6) It is this painful experience that has forced them to think; theorise about their conditions and formulate mechanisms to deal with these challenges. It is these mechanisms that have become tradition in most rural communities and are normally perceived as oppressive and nonsensical to outsiders; but these traditions are solely aimed at restoring their communities and bringing dignity to the dehumanisation. This indeed is thinking in action.

This experience forced me to think of what it means to decolonise anthropology such that we do not misrepresent the communities that we study. I argue that the idea of decolonising anthropology is still entangled within the western epistemology that maintains: (1.) Anthropologists have skills that can improve societal conditions (2.) Anthropology can delink itself from its colonial foundation to produce knowledge that is to the advantage of the oppressed. However, my filed work experience suggests that anthropologists do not have tools to read communities. Even though I am/was a ‘native’ anthropologist, I did not have automatic access to this community as argued by Jacobs-Huey (2002). In fact, my anthropological training was a hindrance, since it imposed foreign concepts, such as patriarchy, that are not part of the reality of this community. I had to draw from my personal experience to make sense of what was happening in that church. Also, the narrative shows that communities are actually capable of theorising about their conditions and come up with solutions that make their conditions more bearable. This means that communities do not need to read about their conditions; therefore, it is self-serving to publish the work that anthropologists do. The skills that anthropologists claim could benefit the communities are, in my opinion, more about sustaining their profession and being recognised in the intellectual space rather than changing the conditions of the communities for the better.

Secondly, delinking anthropology from its colonial foundations proves to be a mission impossible. The biggest criticism of anthropology has been its subject of study – ‘the other’. Levi-Strauss (1966) tried to justify the importance of studying ‘the other’ in an attempt to learn from those who are different from us. This could be read as a noble gesture indeed, since it demystifies the negative connotation of anthropology: that it creates ‘the other’. However, Fanon brings another dynamic to this question of ‘the other’ as he argues that, “it is the settler who has brought native into existence… and he is his property.” (1963: 27) Therefore, “the colonized could not be accommodated into any of the categories utilized in anthropology, the savage, the barbarian and civilized man.” (Maldonado-Torres, 2009: 122) As “the black is after all, a being that has not always existed.” (Gordon, forthcoming: 2) Clearly, the anthropological method cannot reach out to those who have been excluded from the human race – blacks. It is in this context that Gordon calls for philosophical anthropology that will offer a transition from method to methodology and methodological critique (forthcoming: 9).

My fieldwork experience challenges the foundations of anthropology and forces us think beyond the western methodological canon. Our research must be informed by the lived experiences of the ‘damned’. In fact, the insistence on studying the oppressed is the continuation of colonialism as Biko argues:  “the problem is white racism and it rests squarely on the laps of the white society.” (1987: 23) Maybe the first shift should be on the anthropological subject of study, from the ‘other’ to the ‘self’.

References

Biko, S.B. (1987). I write what I like. London: Bowerdean Press.

Césaire, A (1972). Discourse on colonialism. New York and London: Monthly Review Press.

Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. New York: Grove Press

Gordon, L.R. (Forthcoming) Reasoning in black: African philosophy under the weight of misguided reason. In The Savannah Review, edited by Abiola Irele and published by Africa World Press.

Jacobs-Huey, L. (2002). Exchange across difference: The production of ethnographic knowledge. The natives are gazing and talking back: Reviewing the problematic of positional, voice, and accountability among “native” anthropologists. American Anthropologists, 104(3), 791-804

Levi-Strauss, C. (1966). The savage mind. Chicago University: Chicago Press

Maldonado-Torres, N. (2009). Rousseau and Fanon on inequality and human sciences. Creolizing Rousseau, Spring, Volume 15:1

Bio

NZ Radebe is a lecturer at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in the department of Anthropology and Archaeology where she teaches a third year module on qualitative research methods in anthropology. She is currently on sabbatical working on her doctoral studies. Her research topic is: Towards the Human Economy: Understanding the Different Economic Logic of Stokvels. She is a committed decolonial scholar, an activist and an artist that is imagining a world free from all forms of injustices. She has co-authored a book chapter titled: Decolonial Analysis of Coloniality in Anthropology, with Dr N.L. Hlabangane (2016) in Decolonizing the University in Africa, Knowledge Systems and Disciplines, S. J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni & S. Zondi (eds.)  She does storytelling performances in some black communities to open a space for communities to think, engage and express ideas that can contribute to a better world we are imagining.