Conservation,community archaeology,and archaeological mediation at Songo Mnara,Tanzania

Abstract

During archaeological fieldwork at Songo Mnara, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the southern Tanzanian coast, a storm caused the collapse of a graveyard’s retaining wall. The process initiated by the rebuilding of that wall serves as a case study in addressing the dialogue among researchers, community members, and national and international organizations concerning heritage. During the process of rebuilding the wall, the Village Ruins Committee was called up by the Songo Mnara villagers as a community voice to speak with external stakeholders and to access perceived opportunities to work with UNESCO for financial reward. The committee led the rescue operation at the graveyard, yet was not always recognized as part of the process of conserving the site. In describing the tensions among the hierarchy of stakeholders at Songo Mnara, we explore the benefits and contradictions of international involvement with marginalized communities who might have multiple competing interests. Our study also speaks to good archaeological practice and the ways that we must seek to do community archaeology through recognizing the efforts of local groups who need to forge their own paths to collaboration. The case of Songo Mnara is an interesting example of how international heritage agendas, local historical memory and archaeological research can intersect to strengthen community ties to, and investment in, the monuments of the past.     

Finding Meaning in Ancient Swahili Spatial Practices

The development of the Swahili world involved new ways of organizing and conceiving of space. Archaeology and historical linguistics are both crucial in charting the trajectory of changing spatial practice during the late first and early second millennium ad, yet their respective datasets have been correlated only in specific and restricted ways. In this paper, we take the first steps toward working between archaeological and historical linguistic data to understand the changing contexts and meanings of Swahili spatial practice. We develop this argument in three parts. First, we review archaeological approaches to space in the Swahili world and develop a holistic view of towns, including both confined and delimited space. Second, we offer an archaeologists’ perspective on the development of historical linguistics in relation to the Swahili world, exploring the changing relationship between linguistics and archaeology and arguing for a greater appreciation of context in how archaeological materials are deployed with linguistic data. Finally, drawing on new data from Songo Mnara, a fourteenth–sixteenth-century Swahili town on the southern Tanzania coast, we make a preliminary attempt to reconcile some aspects of the archaeological and linguistic datasets. Using published lexical innovations, we suggest ways that meaning might be found alternatively in archaeological and linguistic data. Our hope is to make some tentative steps toward a mutually satisfying way of working between disciplines.     

Beyond the Stone Town: Maritime Architecture at Fourteenth–Fifteenth Century Songo Mnara, Tanzania

The towns of the Swahili coast of East Africa are widely acknowledged as the remains of a maritime society whose relationship with the ocean was fundamental to their economy and identity. Yet research that links the terrestrial environments of the towns to their adjacent maritime landscapes is rare, and urgently required in the light of marine erosional processes unmitigated by human actions. In the Kilwa archipelago of southern Tanzania, survey of the coastal foreshore has documented maritime architecture??particularly a series of coral-built causeways??that serve to link the medieval towns of this area to coastal resources and to expand the limits of the settlements themselves. This paper reports on survey recovering these causeways on Songo Mnara Island, putting the structures into context as part of the broader spatial manifestation of the island??s fourteenth?Cfifteenth century town. Several possible uses of the causeways are discussed, including functional explanations linked to the exploitation of oceanic resources, and more social reasons of territoriality and spatial demarcation.     

The public life of the Swahili stonehouse, 14th–15th centuries AD

Houses are an important subject of archaeological research, normally explored through the households they contain. This has established a deliberately social agenda for the archaeology of houses, yet has had the unintended consequence of creating bounded worlds for study. Although household archaeologies explore the ways that households contributed to broader social and economic realms, it is rare to think through the public role of houses for non-residents and the larger population of the settlement. This paper seeks to explore this more public aspect of houses using the data from archaeology at Songo Mnara, a 14th–15th century Swahili town on the southern Tanzanian coast. This was a time when stone-built domestic architecture was first emerging in this region. The archaeology of the houses provides data for a series of ways that the house was at the heart of the economic and political life of the town, as well as demonstrating a spatial continuity between indoor and outdoor spaces. It is therefore suggested that the domestic and residential functions of the house for a particular household should be balanced with an appreciation of the broader world of the house itself.     

Pillar Tombs and the City: Creating a Sense of Shared Identity in Swahili Urban Space

This paper reviews published research on Swahili pillar tombs, as a specific type of tombs built of stone, by summarising records on almost fifty sites on the east coast of Africa. Dated to the 13th–16th centuries AD, the pillar tombs represented a core component of Swahili urban space. By considering their spatial setting, characteristics and comparative case studies from Africa and the Indian Ocean world, the paper reconsiders how pillar tombs might have functioned as a type of material infrastructure for creating social ties and notions of shared identity in a society that has never formally united.     

Beyond the Coastalscapes: Preindustrial Social and Political Networks in East Africa

The archaeological community worldwide now readily recognizes the role and significance of interregional interaction in the development and sustenance of urban societies (e.g., Marcus and Sabloff 2008; Sinclair et al. 2010; Trigger 2003). Over the past two decades, we have carried out a systematic, problem-oriented research program on the Kenyan coast and its hinterland in an effort to understand the ecological and cultural milieu that enabled towns and city-states to develop along the East African coast beginning in the late first millennium CE. Archaeological research complemented with historical sources of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shows that different scales of analysis can be used to understand the long-term history of the development of urbanism along this Swahili coast: local, regional, and trans-continental frames of reference each show that Swahili communities were part of numerous networks of interactions. An emerging picture of preindustrial urbanism shows that local, regional, and trans-continental interaction spheres tied coastal towns to the hinterland and to wider Indian Ocean commercial and social networks. Not all of the theorized links between the coastal towns and their local and regional trade and interaction partners will be visible archaeologically. We address the still poorly known elements of preindustrial regional networks of alliance and interaction spheres between urban and rural polities and argue that an integrative approach is necessary to understand the context of coastal urban society.     

Swahili women since the nineteenth century: theoretical and empirical considerations on gender and identity construction

This paper provides an analysis and update on the theoretical discussion about the link between gender and identity and uses a group of Swahili women in eastern Africa as an example of how this link works in practice. The first part of the study provides a brief overview of gender theory related to the terms "gender" and "identity." It is noted that gender is only one aspect of identity and that the concept of gender has undergone important changes such as the reconceptualization of the terms "sex" and "gender." The second part of the study synthesizes the experiences of Swahili women in the 19th century when the convergence of gender and class was very important. The status of Muslim women is reviewed, and it is noted that even influential women practiced purdah and that all Swahili women experienced discrimination, which inhibited their opportunities for socioeconomic mobility. Slavery and concubinage were widespread during this period, and the participation of Islamic women in spirit possession cults was a way for women to express themselves culturally. The separation of men and women in Swahili culture led to the development of two distinct subcultures, which excluded women from most aspects of public life. The third part of the study looks at the experiences of Swahili women since the 19th century both during and after the colonial period. It is shown that continuity exists in trends observed over a period of 200 years. For example, the mobility of Swahili women remains limited by Islam, but women do exert influence behind the scenes. It is concluded that the socioeconomic status of Swahili woman has been shaped more by complex forces such as class, ethnic, religious, and geographic area than by the oppression of Islam and colonialism. This study indicates that gender cannot be studied in isolation from other salient variables affecting identity.     

Developments in Rural Life on the Eastern African Coast,a.d. 700–1500

The eastern African coast is known for its Swahili “stonetowns.” Archaeological study of stonetowns has overshadowed that of Swahili rural life, and how it reformulated in the context of urban transformations after a.d. 1000. To help redress that imbalance, we focus here on village research carried out in a Swahili heartland—Pemba Island, Tanzania—in the context of two archaeological projects. We feature four settlements: later 1st millennium Kimimba village and its large, trading village neighbor, Tumbe; and 2nd millennium Kaliwa village, neighbor to Chwaka stonetown. Their archaeology, contextualized within a regional landscape, allows us to say new things about the changing nature of rural life on Pemba, and to make a case for the potential of village complexity elsewhere on the Swahili coast.     

城市公租房社区生活空间质量研究——以西安市为例

以城市社会生活空间质量观理念为研究框架,运用核密度、缓冲区分析等方法从社区物质环境以及居民对社区感知两个维度对城市公租房社区的生活空间质量进行评价。研究发现：西安市公租房社区空间布局较为偏远,集聚特征明显;除教育资源外,医院、商业以及游憩等资源均处于低可获性状态;社区居民对公租房社区房屋面积、房屋质量、物业管理、社区绿化等方面满意度较低,社区归属感及长期居住意愿不强。西安市公租房社区在社区资源可获性方面存在一定的空间剥夺现象,社区整体生活空间质量水平不高。     

‘It's a public,I reckon’: Publicness and a Suburban Shopping Mall in Sydney's Southwest

Traditionally, public space has been perceived as an integral part of fully functioning liberal democracy. Yet much research argues that public space is in decline due to regimes of neoliberal governance paralleled with a growth in quasi-public spaces such as shopping malls, casinos and gated communities. It is argued that these new spatial forms posit a commercialised, sanitised and ultimately exclusionary urban form in place of more egalitarian, engaging and ultimately democratic public spaces. Increasingly, however, urban research has questioned the veracity of the claims made about the nature of traditional public space as well as investigating the marginal and contingent nature of publicness as constituted by and enacted in a variety of places. Drawing on Foucault's concept of heterotopic space, this paper reports on a qualitative study based on focus group interviews conducted with users of a suburban shopping mall in Sydney's southwest. The research uncovers both a more complex and less overtly deterministic publicness than has previously been identified in such spaces. From these findings the paper argues for a conception of publicity which moves beyond the zero-sum game approach endemic in much work in this area to one which analyses the qualitative effect quasi-public spaces are having on the nature of publicness in the Australian context. The paper concludes by arguing that a rethinking of publicness allows room for the emergence of a more progressive public ethic.     

大事件影响下的城市空间演化特征研究——以昆明为例

本文将大事件作为一种植入城市进程中的空间生产与再生产过程,分析了大事件空间效应的形成机制,认为"大型投资"与"社会动员"是嵌入城市社会空间统一体并推动城市"物质空间"与"社会空间"演化的内在机制。进而以昆明市为例,界定了昆明世博会的空间影响期,研究了影响期内城市物质空间与社会空间演化的基本特征。文章认为世博会的植入是上述特征形成的影响因素之一,并从空间投资、社会动员与社会植入的角度建立了昆明世博会与城市空间演化关系的解释框架。     

Swahili Cosmopolitanism in Africa and the Indian Ocean World, A.D. 600–1500

Coastal peoples who lived along the Eastern African seaboard in the first millennium A.D. onwards began converting to Islam in the mid-eighth century. Clearly rooted in and linked throughout to an indigenous regional Iron Age tradition, they created a marked difference between themselves and their regional neighbors through their active engagement with Islam and the expanding Indian Ocean world system. In this paper I explore three ways in which interrelated cultural norms—an aesthetic featuring imported ceramics, foods, and other items, Islamic practice, and a favoring of urban living—created and maintained this difference over many centuries. These qualities of their identity helped anchor those who became Swahili peoples as participants in the Indian Ocean system. Such characteristics also can be seen to have contributed to Swahili attractiveness as a place for ongoing small-scale settlement of Indian Ocean peoples on the African coast, and eventually, as a target for nineteenth-century Arab colonizers from the Persian Gulf. This paper examines the archaeology of these aspects of Swahili culture from its early centuries through ca. A.D. 1500.     

基于居民移动-活动行为的城市空间研究

在以人为本及后现代思潮的大背景下,人文地理学研究越来越关注个体人的行为以及生活质量问题,基于居民移动-活动行为的城市空间研究正成为人文地理及城市规划学等学科的焦点。论文在对城市活动空间研究及城市交通出行研究中的问题进行梳理的基础上,提出一个基于居民移动-活动行为的城市空间研究新框架,强调行为与空间之间的互动关系,强调RP法和SP法的结合,强调现实行为、现实空间与理想行为、理想空间之间的和谐。     

GENDER DIVISIONS IN URBAN SPACE: BEYOND THE RIGIDITY OF DUALIST CLASSIFICATIONS

The paper discusses the absence of gender from the analysis and understanding of urban development as a result of dichotomies, implicit or explicit, in much of urban research: private space vs public space, home life vs politics, domestic labor vs paid employment, reproduction vs production. It is argued that urban analysis and theorizing have focused almost exclusively on the latter part of such dichotomies, the one associated with men and masculinity. This is an emphasis on and valuation of the adult male's activities and experiences of urban development and a corresponding devaluation of the activities and experiences of women — thereby reproducing gender hierarchies and ways of thinking about them. To consider these questions, a historically and geographically specific context of urban development is presented: the municipality of Helioupolis in the Greater Athens area (Greece). This study helps explain how the boundaries of divisions and dichotomies are transcended in women's everyday lives; how women (and men) are not exclusively identified with either part of dichotomies; but also how dichotomies are often intensified — sometimes by perceptions and practices of women themselves.     

城市生活质量与生活空间质量研究评介与展望

在当今的社会-文化进程阶段,新人本主义强调人与社会(文化)和谐的可持续发展观,其目标体现在人们的生活质量上,其焦点是城市(社会)生活质量构成与城市(社会)生活质量空间耦合的建构。从新人本主义理念出发探讨城市(社会)生活质量与其对应(社会)生活空间质量对政府部门和学术界都是全新的课题。二者在不同领域,不同学科之间的研究并行不悖。对前者的研究是人文社会与管理学科聚焦的方向,对后者的探讨是区域与城市诸学科聚焦的方向。它们充分体现学科融合的新理念/原理及其前沿性。本文从研究源起、研究意义、研究阶段以及评价指标体系的构建等不同角度对二者的国内外研究动态及方向进行了评介与展望,目的在于明晰二者的研究方法,理论框架与研究趋势,为社会与城市发展及其规划指明方向,提供理论基础与科学依据。     

媒介-空间辩证法:创意城市理论新解

本文采用思辨方法,以作者对现代城市空间的观察,以及"媒介物"和"媒介表征"在城市空间的渗透,作为出发点,探讨媒介与城市空间的辩证关系,增进有关媒介和城市及其相互作用的认识。文章指出媒介-空间辩证法的知识基础,来自于新兴交叉学科"媒介与传播地理学";然后对媒体的空间性和空间化过程及其在城市空间的具体表现和可能影响,进行了初步分析,建立了媒体与城市空间的交互分类体系;通过借用"媒介的物化"和"物的媒介化"思想,将媒体与城市空间的辩证关系,与创意城市的理论探讨相关联,指出媒介-城市空间辩证法对于创意城市的理论建构,具有重要的启发意义。     

城市绿地时空演化及空间布局模式研究

本文初步探讨了城市绿地时空演化与城市发展的关系,指出随城市发展,城市绿地设施程度增加自然度降低的演化趋向。以游憩行为理论为依据,以吉林市为实例,提出了波状和辐射状两种分布态势相结合的城市绿地空间布局模式,强调环状绿地与楔型绿地相结合,各类分级绿地与游憩系统相结合。进而提出城市绿地建设三个圈层即城市中心散点状绿化带-城市郊区集块状公园绿化带-城市外围连续自然生产绿化带的构想。在此基础上针对城市土地利用程度的地域差异,对于城市高度利用区、改造发展区、城市新区和郊区逐一提出了各自的绿地布局策略。     

Why Land Here? Ports and Harbors in Southeast Tanzania in the Early Second Millennium AD

The east African Swahili ports developed extensive maritime trading links around the Indian Ocean, and supported economic, political, and urban growth in the early second millennium AD. This article identifies ports of varying function and importance in SE Tanzania, and seeks to understand their development in the context of natural harbor advantage, boat technology, sailing practice, and resource needs. Field data from landing places are combined with weather patterns, historical documents, and oral traditions to provide an integrated survey of the ports and harbors that once sustained medieval commerce along this section of the Swahili coast. The emergence of Kilwa as an entrepôt to become the key center is based initially upon its naturally advantageous harbor facilities, safety and flexibility of approach in days of sail, and assurance of monsoon winds. Original natural advantages gradually become self-sustaining with its economic and political growth. To the north and south of Kilwa a series of ports of call with drinking water and boat servicing supported trade to and from the pre-eminent city, although some such as Kisimani Mafia and Kwale-Kisuju developed important trade functions of their own.     

Generating Alternative Land‐use Allocation for Mixed Use Areas: Multi‐Objective Optimization Approach

Current research is carried out with an intention to present an optimization approach for the urban land‐use allocation problem by generating Pareto optimum solutions considering two objectives—maximizing compatibility among adjacent space uses of a study area without compromising the area’s total land price and maximizing the price of plot of each individual owner. Considering the non‐linear characteristics of the objective functions, a multi‐objective evolutionary algorithm approach called Non‐Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm‐II (NSGA‐II) is applied to obtain Pareto optimal land‐use allocation subject to different set of constraints. The objective functions are tested over a case study area of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The resulting NSGA‐II model produces 24 Pareto optimal solutions of land‐use allocation, allowing tradeoff between maximizing compatibility and land price from one solution to other. This research also expresses the potential of the model to aid the policymakers and city planners of development authorities by providing alternative land‐use plans, and thereby predicting the consequences of any plan before practical application.     

郊区化背景下北京市民城市中心商业区的利用特征

通过微观层面上对北京市居民中心商业中心消费行为的调查,分析郊区化背景下城市中心商业区发展现状,通过市民对城市中心商业区利用特征及其所反映的中心商业区发展问题来认识城市商业空间的变化。虽然城市中心传统商业区仍然在北京市居民消费中保持着重要地位,但是其购物空间已经表现出逐渐向迅速发展的近郊商业区转移的趋势;同时,随着新业态的迅速发展和私家车的普及,中心商业区将面临越发严峻的挑战。