Michael Bollig & Olaf Bubenzer (ed.) African landscapes: interdisciplinary approaches.

Michael Bollig & Olaf Bubenzer (ed.) African landscapes: interdisciplinary approaches. MICHAEL BOLLIG & OLAF BUBENZER (ed.) African landscapes:interdisciplinary approaches (Studies in Human Ecology and Adaptation4). 2009. xxiv+516 pages, 149 b&w & colour illustrations, 18tables. 2009. New York: Springer; 978-0-38778681-0 hardback $119;978-0-387-78682-7 ebook; DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-78682-7. Available athttp://www.springer.com/social+sciences/anthropology+and+archaeology/boold978-0-387-78681-0. This edited volume showcases the activities of ACACIA (AridClimate, Adaptation and Cultural Innovation in Africa), a CollaborativeResearch Centre based at Cologne University. ACACIA has been conductingextensive, multidisciplinary research in the Western Desert of Egypt,Sudan and Namibia since 1995, focusing on the past 12 000 years of humanoccupation. The volume is intended to highlight the importance of aninterdisciplinary approach for the study of the human-environmentrelationship. The structure of the volume, which presents articles byresearchers in the earth sciences, archaeology, the historical sciences,socio-cultural anthropology and linguistics in separate sections, is,however, more multidisciplinary than interdisciplinary. Nonetheless, theunifying potential of the landscape concept within the Natural andSocial Sciences is apparent here and as such the volume represents aparticularly timely contribution. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Overall, the theme of this volume is reminiscent of theinterdisciplinary projects led by Graeme Barker in the Libyan Desert(e.g. 1996, 2000) although it lacks the thematic focus thatcharacterises these projects. The full potential of the landscapeconcept as a means of drawing together researchers from differentdisciplines (perhaps because it is variously interpreted by thecontributing authors) is not fully exploited in this volume. Curiously,given the focus on African landscapes, none of the chapters in this workeven reference Barker's contributions. Generally-speaking, whilethe volume fails to convince the reader of its interdisciplinarity, anumber of chapters do a good job of demonstrating the benefits of anintegrated approach to the study of landscape. For an Anglo-Saxon audience, one interesting aspect of the volumeis that it exposes the reader to the German school of landscape studies.Bubenzer's first chapter, a brief history of the development of thelandscape concept within the German scholarly tradition in EarthSciences, exemplifies this. Sauer's work, for example, which hasbeen extremely influential in North America (particularly his 1925publication, republished 1963) is not cited. This introductory chapterto part I of the volume makes a nice juxtaposition to Rossler'sintroduction to part III. There Rossler presents a history ofanthropological approaches to landscape, that is of landscape as acultural concept, detailing the recent development of this concept andunderlining the multiplicity of meaning contained within it.Unfortunately, the reader is left to compare the two; it would have beenan interesting exercise to present these two chapters together andestablish a dialogue between their authors. Contributions to part I, the earth sciences and archaeologysection, explore the uses of predictive modelling and the exploitationof geomorphological data. Chapter 2, by Bolten et al., presents anexample of archaeological predictive modelling in the Regenfeld regionof the Western Desert of Egypt, using GIS. The Regenfeld has a verydistinctive, linear structure given by a succession of dunes that marchat regular intervals across the landscape. The authors make use ofgeomorphological data and spatial data from archaeological surveysconducted by the ACACIA project, to derive a predictive model ofland-use potential in the target region. Chapter 4 (Menz & Richters)presents a method for classifying landscapes in the Regenfeld usingsatellite images and geomorphological data. The determination oflandform types is not a trivial process and represents an important steptowards the construction of complex predictive models. Chapter 3 (Linstadter) explores the dynamics of the savannahlandscape under various conditions, focusing specifically on theimportance of disturbance regimes--which she demonstrates are essentialto understanding the ecology of a landscape. Linstadter convincinglyargues that sustainable models of range management should mimicnaturally occurring disturbance regimes. Chapter 5, by Riemer, is abeautifully illustrated history of land-use in the Regenfeld achieved bycombining the results from ACACIA's landscape-oriented surveystrategy, previous surveys, and detailed climatological andpaleoenvironmental information. Settlement patterns are contextualisedin terms of available resources and key environmental constraints, andthe impact of climatic phases on the Holocene occupation of the regionis explored. Lenssen-Erz and Linstadter (Chapter 6) contribute a methodfor recording archaeological remains that ensures the collection of datarelevant for the exploration of human-environment interactions whichincludes an analytical scheme which uses a concept akin to the conceptof affordance (Gibson 1977) defined here as 'use-potential'.Chapters 5 and 6 provide interesting approaches to the study of the samearid landscape, but the reader is left wishing the authors had attemptedto compare, and possibly integrate, their approaches. In part II, historical sciences, Herb and Derchain (Chapter 7)present a fascinating exploration of the relationship between thephysical structure of the Nile Valley and native conceptualisations ofthe landscape. The authors use objective, geographic data and toponymyto build, very convincingly, a picture of how the Ancient Egyptiansperceived their landscape and linked this perception to their religiousbeliefs. In Chapter 8, informed by a modern anthropological approachthat considers the landscape as a repository for memory and meaning,Hayes explores perception and meaning for the Ovambo during recent,precolonial times. Contrasted with European perceptions of the vast and'troublesome African landscape' of Eastern Namibia (acquiredfrom nineteenth-century explorers such as Anderson and Galton, andperfectly illustrated in the careful composition of a photograph inChapter 11 (fig. 11.3)), for the Ovambo the landscape was rich withmeaning and memory. In Chapter 9, Gewald explores the history andpolitics of urban planning in the Windhoek district of Namibia: hedocuments the use of forced relocations and urban planning as a means ofdominating and disenfranchising Africans under apartheid, which imposesa new social order through the use of carefully structured urbanlandscapes. The physical use of the landscape as a means of enforcing aparticular vision of the past is blatantly evident in this ratherdepressing case study. Brinkman's chapter which follows highlightsa similarly depressing incident where the link between a people, theirculture and the land is irreparably broken through deliberateintervention. It is not clear to me why parts II and III (perspectives fromsocial and cultural anthropology) are considered separate entities,except that the authors are based in different academic departments. Thedegree to which this somewhat arbitrary division runs counter to thestated goal of encouraging interdisciplinarity is obvious when oneconsiders the shared interest in identity, memory and power shown in thelast three chapters of part II. In part III, after Rossler's introduction to theanthropological study of landscape, several chapters describe the waysin which social forms are inscribed and reproduced in the landscape. InChapter 12, Bollig explores the role of commemorative rituals as a meansof inscribing genealogies in the landscape. The author points out thatthese rituals (omavaru), which take place in specially constructedritual spaces and involve visits to gravesites and the construction ofcommemorative monuments (ovipande), are rife with metaphorical allusionslinking kin groups, ancestors and the landscape. Dieckmann (Chapter 13) examines the contrast between Westerntourists' perceptions of the Namibian landscape, shaped by theirculture's own aesthetic traditions and a lack of historicalconnection to the land, and the perceptions of a Namibian, for whom thelandscape is deeply layered with memories and meaning. It is interestingto draw a comparison between this chapter and Bender's (2002)explorations of the meaning of the landscape for people inhabitingvarious places in the British Isles. Arguably, emphasis on the'specular' perspective of the Western tourist is somewhatmisplaced--as it could simply follow from a lack of historicalconnectedness. In Chapter 14 Gruntkowski also explores landscapeconcepts from an inter-cultural perspective, contrasting attitudes todrought and landscape aesthetics among inhabitants of the same region(the !Khuiseb catchment area) from two distinct cultural backgrounds(indigenous Topnaar and white farmers). Although the number ofinformants consulted for this study is small and the sample ofEuropean-descent farmers is heterogeneous, Gruntkowski echoesDieckman's appreciation of the aesthetic importance of a perceived'natural' landscape for people which the author identifies asrooted in their shared cultural background. In contrast, the Topnaarhave a more fine-grained appreciation for the landscape. Contrastingperspectives on landscape carry over into the construction of conceptsas basic as what constitutes a drought, and what constitutes a beautifulspot. Widlock (Chapter 15) makes a plea for the integration of theanthropology of settlements and landscapes that echoes Foley's(e.g. 1981) call for the adoption of 'off-site' archaeology inthe 1980s. As Widlock points out, 'an analysis that can account fara wide range of phenomena is to be preferred against two separatetheories that meet, as it were, at the doorstep to a homestead or ahouse but do not allow us to cross the threshold.' The key toachieving this integration, for Widlock, is a consideration of thequality of permeability, in lieu of the outmoded concept of civilised vswild space which may not be applicable to contemporary, heavily settledAfrican landscapes. Widlock points out that the analysis of permeabilityemphasises the connection between places and is equally applicable tosettlements and landscapes, although application to the latter is farless intuitively obvious (and less convincingly argued). Part IV, on linguistics and oral history, contains three articles(by M6hlig, Kathage, Kavari and Bleckmann) that explore landscapeconcepts as expressed through the medium of language. Being generallymore difficult for the non-linguist to evaluate and bearing in mind thereadership of this review, these will not be summarised here. Suffice tosay that the enquiries and approaches adopted--a 'taxonomichierarchy' of terms relating to the landscape, cognitive theory,and a linguistic analysis of oral traditions among Ojithererospeakers--offer fascinating insights into perceptions of landscape,memory and legitimation of power. But here again, one might have wishedfor a greater integration of this section with the volume as a whole. Although the book suffers occasionally from poor editing (e.g. inthe introduction there are two rather unfortunate references to JamesLyell where Charles was intended), most contributions are writtenclearly and concisely. The volume is richly illustrated: the colourplates are particularly welcome, as readers familiar with thedifficulties of translating GIS outputs into monochrome figures willrecognise. In summary, Bollig and Bubenzer's collection contains avaried and interesting series of chapters that explore Africanlandscapes from different disciplinary perspectives. Despite somereservations about its claims to interdisciplinarity, I recommend thisvolume as a useful sourcebook not only for Africanists but also forresearchers from a variety of disciplines. References BARKER, G. & D. MATTINGLY (ed.). 1996. Farmingthe desert: theUNESCO Libyan valleys archaeological survey. Paris: UNESCO. BARKER, G. & D. G1LBERTSON (ed.). 2000. The archaeology ofdrylands: living at the margin. London & New York: Routledge. BENDER, B. 2002. Time and landscape. Current Anthropology43:103-12. FOLEY, R. 1981. Off-site archaeology: an alternative approach forthe short-sited, in G. Isaac, I. Hodder & N. Hammond (ed.) Patternof the past: 157-83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. GIBSON, J. 1979. The theory of affordances, in R. Shaw & J.Bransford (ed.) Perceiving, acting, and knowing: towards an eeologicalpsychology: 12643. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum. SAUER, C.O. 1963. The morphology of landscape, in J. Leighly (ed.)Land & life: a selection from the writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer:315-50. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Originally publishedas Saner, C.O. 1925. The morphology of landscape. University ofCalifornia Publications in Geography 2: 19-54.] ARIANE BURKE Department of Anthropology, University of Montreal, Canada (Email:a.burke@umontreal.ca)