The 2023-2024 AnthroGuide is the last print version. Edits for graduate programs are due July 31, 2023.

Ann B Stahl

Primary Field
Archaeology
Position
Professor and Spring 2021 Honours Advisor
http://www.uvic.ca/socialsciences/anthropology
Professor, University of Victoria, Department of Anthropology
E-mail
stahlann@uvic.ca
vCard
Knowledge / Expertise
Interest/Specialty Areas Archaeology, comparative colonialism, materiality
Biography

Accepting grad students for Fall 2021. Dr. Ann Stahl encourages M.A. applications from graduate students interested in public archaeology and digital heritage, particularly those with interest in becoming involved in the "Improving African Futures Using Lessons from the Past" initiative (see below).

I am an anthropological archaeologist with research interests in Africa. Since the mid-1980s I've engaged in a community-based historical and archaeological study of how daily life in the rural Banda area of west central Ghana has been reshaped through West Africa's involvement in global exchange (via trans-Saharan and later Atlantic networks) over the last thousand years.

My research draws on broader theoretical and methodological interests in: political economy; material culture studies; analogy; and the production of history in the present. In my research and writing I have been particularly concerned to address the methodological challenges of working with multiple lines of evidence (ethnographic, oral historical, documentary and archaeological) and to demonstrate the value of archaeological sources for historical anthropological inquiry.

A particular focus of my recent research and teaching is the active role of material culture in social negotiations and culture-making practices. The broader goal of these endeavours is to develop "material histories" that help us to understand the role of global connections in shaping the social and political economic worlds of colonizers and colonized alike. This work is complemented by my growing interest in digital heritage initiatives on which I am working in collaboration with communities and colleagues in Ghana, as described more fully below. See also Banda Through Time and Banda thru Time Digital Heritage Resources for more information.

Interests

  • Archaeology
  • Comparative colonialism
  • Materiality
  • Digital heritage initiatives and sustainable digital data management
  • Africa/Ghana
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Geographic Areas of Expertise International
Sub-Saharan Africa
Ghana
Organizations