"Sociality of Merchant Capital and Archaeology of Early Modernity in Atlantic Africa" by Prof Akin Ogundiran, UNC Charlotte.
This talk was recorded as part of the Garrod research seminar series hosted by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research on 17 February 2022.
Abstract: Atlantic Africa was an integral part of the object-centered world of early modernity. It was a world powered by merchant capital, which financed slavery, genocide, and various colonial projects during the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries. Yet, merchant capital was also integrated into everyday lives. Generations of people around the world were socialized into its networks of symbols. This presentation draws from archaeological contexts and eye-witness accounts to share (1) what merchant capital reveals about the logics of early African modernity; (2) how global objects were domesticated and re-composed into new symbols and signs; and (3) the agentive roles of merchant capital in creating new ideas, imagination, and consciousness about self, community, and the world. The talk will demonstrate what materiality contributes to a more inclusive intellectual and cultural history of early modernity.
