From 7a825514b147b1b42a0c0a6a581a8d131adf9bf0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Alexandros Tsakos Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2024 12:39:13 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] boozer --- content/article/boozerintro.md | 416 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 416 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/article/boozerintro.md diff --git a/content/article/boozerintro.md b/content/article/boozerintro.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0c4db0 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/article/boozerintro.md @@ -0,0 +1,416 @@ +--- +title: "Introduction" +authors: ["annaboozer.md"] +keywords: ["homescape", "home", "homeland", "household", "homelife", "diaspora", "displacement", "tahgeer" ,"Nubia", "Nubian", "Aswan High Dam Campaign", "war", "genocide", "resettlement", "Kom Ombo", "stereotype", "longue durée"] +--- + +# Introduction + +This volume goes to press as a war once again threatens homelife in +Sudan. This conflict, which began in April 2023, has created the largest +internally displaced population in the world -- well over one million at +this stage, although firm numbers are difficult to come by. In addition +to displacement, some communities, such as Darfur, face genocide. And +yet this conflict has escaped international attention and outrage. This +war is not remote to the individuals who contributed to this volume, +some of whom were themselves displaced by warfare. Others search for +information to support friends and colleagues who remain in Sudan. And +still others give us optimism while they work with diaspora communities +to heal the trauma of war, displacement, and genocide. Themes of +homescape and displacement weave through these contemporary experiences, +demonstrating the continued relevance of these topics today. + +This volume takes a long-term perspective on Nubian houses and +households to explore the distinctive material, visual, and +phenomenological worlds of Nubian homescapes. Nubia extends from the +area around Aswan in Egypt to the contemporary town of Debba in Sudan, a +region that roughly corresponds to the area between the first and fourth +cataracts along the Nile. Nubians have existed as a distinct +ethno-linguistic group since ancient times.[^1] + +Contributors to this volume of *Dotawo* explore homelife during periods +when there were changes in the political and social organization in +Nubia. By exploring a range of case studies that include objects, +bodies, households, floral remains, workspaces, houses, and art we aim +to understand how ordinary people made and continue to make their homes +and livelihoods during periods of systemic change. In the process, we +consider how these same sources reveal the power of everyday activities +to transform broad social organizations from the bottom up. We also +explore how some ancient social practices in Nubia might live on and +continue to structure life in the present. + +Many of our contributors have explored homescapes creatively, remaining +attentive to the multisensory, embodied, and intersectional ways that +people experienced the home. We have encouraged these creative +approaches because they capture the essence of homescapes better than +academic prose alone. For this reason, this volume of *Dotawo* includes +photographic essays, artwork, and fiction in addition to sociological, +anthropological, archaeological, and linguistic approaches to the topic. + +This introduction situates the themes that structure this volume -- +homescapes, resettlement, and the *longue durée*. A brief history of the +Nubian diaspora provides insights into this step change in Nubian +lifeways and suggests comparisons for how contemporary displaced +communities can move forward. And, finally, I introduce the twelve +contributions to this volume, which range from ancient to contemporary +Nubian society and span a range of disciplines -- archaeology, art, +sociology, history, linguistics, and cultural anthropology among them. + +# Homescapes + +People often define *home* as a place where one lives permanently, +usually as a member of a family or household. But home is more than a +physical place and the people contained within it. Home is also where +people tend to feel most at ease because they are familiar with the +sounds, smells, and patterns of life within and beyond house walls. + +Meanwhile, *homescapes* may be defined as the physical or symbolic +landscapes of one's home or homeland. In this way, a homescape may be as +palpable as a house and its surrounding environs. Or it might be more +ethereal. For example, an individual's accent might evoke feelings of +home and inclusion to a native speaker who hears them speak, as Asmaa +Taha describes in her contribution to this volume. + +Tim Ingold invented the term *taskscape* as a play on the word +*landscape*. In his words, "just as a landscape is an array of features, +so -- by analogy -- is the taskscape an array of related +activities.[^2]" We define our own term *homescape* in a similar manner +-- as an array of features related to the home. A homescape, then, is a +socially constructed space of human activity, understood as having +spatial, conceptual, or emotional boundaries and delimitations. Of key +importance to Ingold's definition of taskscape was that it be understood +as perpetually in process rather than in a static or immutable state. +We, too, consider the malleability of homescape to be a key component of +its definition. Concepts of homescape thus contain a dichotomy within +them -- they rely on both deep histories of connection as well as fluid +processes of formation and reformation. People actively make their +homescapes as they go about their everyday lives. They forge a home from +the land, imbuing it with memory, meaning, and significance.[^3] This +agency within everyday life, even amid circumstances of forced movement, +is at the forefront of many contributions to this volume. + +Diasporas, whether voluntary or enforced, rupture concepts of *home* and +*homescape.* The dispersion of a people from their original homeland +creates scattered communities that combine their homeland with their new +place of residence. These amalgamations between homeland and new home +are complicated by the circumstances surrounding the relocation. + +People who have been forced to leave their homeland due to war, +persecution, or natural disaster cannot make a new home so easily. +Displaced people, and especially those who are displaced within the +borders of their own country (known as Internally Displaced Persons or +IDPs), are among the most vulnerable people in the world. They are often +trapped in a protracted temporary housing status for years or even +decades. Although they remain within the borders of their nation state, +they rarely receive the assistance they require to make a new, stable +home. Instead, many continue to flee from one place to another in a +quest for adequate shelter, water, food, and medical care. This +situation is the case for displaced persons who remain in Sudan at the +moment this volume goes to press. + +Displaced persons are usually severed from their original vocations, +communities, and even families. In such precarious conditions, such +individuals are left to forge new identities with each new residence -- +each locale they encounter offers them new opportunities to pursue while +closing out others. The hope that Khalid Shatta offers with his artwork, +outreach activities, and long-term perspectives, helps assuage some of +the hopelessness that may arise when considering these circumstances. +His painting "Boozer/Shatta Figure 14" depicts a crowd of people who +have fled the war in Sudan for Cairo. Their minds appear to be +preoccupied with their homes and the war they have left behind. This +disembodied rumination on homescape captures the essence of forced +resettlement and diaspora more succinctly than any words I can put down +here. + +Even those who move home under less violent circumstances have to cope +with ruptures of making a new home in a different physical space as +Amany Sadiq, Maher Habbob, Menna Agha, and Armgard Goo-Grauer describe +in their articles. It also involves confronting linguistic differences +and even offensive stereotypes, as Asmaa Taha describes. There is hope +as well as struggle when finding a new place in the world, as Khalid +Shatta described during the course of our interview. Although far from +home, Shatta explained how feelings of home have never evaporated for +him. Instead, visions of homescape endure and adapt, allowing +individuals to forge new senses of self and home as they remake their +lives. + +# Nubian Homelife and the Nubian Diaspora + +Concepts of home, homelife, and homescape have been present since +ancient times, as Hamad Hamdeen, Kate Fulcher, Sarah Shrader, and Elsa +Yvanez demonstrate in their contributions to this volume. It is +challenging to identity emotional and conceptual relations to home in +the material residues of past lives. These contributors tackled this +challenge by using a wide range of methodological and theoretical +vantages. + +Meanwhile, the Nubian diaspora has complicated easy encapsulations of +early modern and contemporary Nubian homescapes. The Nubian diaspora is +itself complex. While many Nubians were involuntarily displaced from +their homes, others dispersed of their own volition in pursuit of +opportunities beyond their homeland. This is certainly true of the +Nubians of southern Egypt. Many Egyptian Nubian men had sought +employment outside of Nubia for centuries, returning to their homeland +only periodically. In her photo essay, Anne Jennings discusses this +traditional Egyptian Nubian economy prior to the erection of the first +dam along the Nile in 1903 as well as the impact of this and other +modifications over the years. The raising of the High Dam in the 1960s +led to significant changes in Nubian homescapes. That construction +completely flooded the area between the First and Second Cataracts, and +forced approximately 50,000 Nubians to resettle in the thirty-three +villages built to accommodate them near the town of Kom Ombo. Several +villages near the town of Aswan were not in danger of inundation and so +the villagers were not removed. + +The new villages near Kom Ombo were a shock and a disappointment to +those who resettled there. Nevertheless, they did their best to recreate +their old environment, homes, and lifeways. Some traditions survived, +while others shifted, as Menna Agha, Argard Goo-Grauer, Maher Habbob, +and Amany Sadeq describe in their contributions to the volume. Anne M. +Jennings reminds us that significant changes took place even among those +who were able to remain in their villages near Awan. Homescapes are +always in a state of flux, even though they are deeply entangled with +endurance and memory. + +Many Nubians, both male and female, are now living internationally, in +countries such as the United States (especially in New York and +Virginia), England (especially in London), France, (especially in +Paris), Switzerland, and Germany, as well as in Egypt (namely, in Cairo +and Alexandria in addition to the Kom Ombo region).[^4] Some of these +communities struggle against racism and pressures to conform to local +cultures at the cost of preserving their own lifeways. Others have +identified new opportunities and advantages unavailable to them in their +homeland. Past homescapes continue to haunt how individuals perceive and +act in their new settings. + +# Contributions + +The contributors to this volume approach homescapes from broad temporal, +geographic, and disciplinary standpoints. Despite these differences, +common themes arose among the contributions, such as the value of the +surrounding landscape in creating homescapes (e.g. Sadeq, Tsakos, +Fulcher, Hamad) and the need to describe and interact with the home +creatively in the form of words or images (Fulcher, Shatta, Jennings, +Goo-Grauer). Given the rich connections between them, these papers could +be grouped in any number of ways. Here, however, I decided to focus on +themes of craftwork, displacement, and the *longue durée* since they +repeated in so many of the contributions. + +## Craftwork and labor + +Many contributors explored craftwork and labor, demonstrating how work +helps to define and make a homescape. Hamad Hamdeen delved into the +plant remains found in the mudbricks used to construct Christian sites +in Nubia. Brickmakers added these plant remains and other debris -- +collectively known as chaff -- to mudbricks to increase their strength +and durability. These plant remains are small, sometimes invisible to +the naked eye. And yet they contain within them a wealth of information +about the materials people used in and around the home. These remains +shed light on pharmacy, food and drink consumption, home construction, +and fodder among other aspects of everyday life. Hamdeen makes a strong +argument for making mudbrick analysis a mainstay of archaeological +research through his careful analysis of four significant Christian +sites in the Mahas region of Sudan. + +While bioarchaeology has been a mainstay of archaeological research +since its inception, Sarah Schrader takes a unique vantage on human +remains. Using bioarchaeological methods, Schrader demonstrates the +frequency with which individuals assumed a squatting position. People +squatted while working -- cooking, cleaning, taking care of children -- +as well as when they drank tea or chatted with a neighbor. In other +words, ancient Nubians spent a lot of time in a squatting position. +Schrader's approach offers us a peak into the everyday postures people +assumed in and around their homes in antiquity. + +Elsa Yvanez delves into the world of work in her exploration of textile +activities in Sudan during the Meroitic Period (*ca.* 300 BCE -- 400 +CE), a time when Meroë served as the capital of the Kingdom of Kush. She +draws together the surviving material signatures of weaving -- spindle +whorls, and loom weights most particularly -- to understand where and +how people incorporated textile work into village and city life during +the Meroitic Period. Her analysis reveals that this craftwork took place +in domestic spaces as well as more formalized multi-use industrial +areas. She found that textile production was ubiquitous, taking place +in, around, and outside of the home. This result underscores the +centrality of textiles to the social, economic and work lives of people +living in Meroitic Nubia. + +Finally, Kate Fulcher explores painting materials used in ancient and +contemporary Nubia as a way of accessing the complex entanglements of +everyday life. She explains how people see the landscapes around them as +palettes for decorating their homes. She found ancient evidence of color +harvesting in the form of raw pigment lumps, the paintings themselves, +and the residue found on grinding stones. Fulcher's ethnoarchaeological +research compliments this material evidence since informants provide +insights into the decisions and practices linked to acquiring and using +pigment to decorate their homes. Fulcher gathers together this suite of +evidence into a fictional narrative aimed at making past lives palpable +and accessible. + +## Resettlement + +Feelings of displacement, due to architectural, social, and linguistic +differences pulse throughout the contributions that describe Nubian +resettlement in the wake of the Aswan High Dam construction. Although +there had been dams and diasporas before the final raising of the dam, +this last raising served as a key turning point for Nubian +homescapes.[^5] + +Menna Agha explores the deep disappointment many Nubian settlers felt +when they beheld the unfamiliar houses offered to them in what they +called "*Al* *Tahgeer,*" the "place of displacement". The Egyptian State +refers to *Al Tahgeer* as "New Nubia," a considerably more optimistic +term that evades common Nubian sentiment. Evasion can be found +throughout the resettlement process, as Agha describes in her essay. The +Egyptian state prized optimization and productivity in their house +designs rather than understanding the home as the fulcrum of everyday +Nubian life. They left the views of Nubian women, who were deeply +involved in placemaking, completely out of their planning. Agha shows us +how villagers refashioned these prefabricated domestic spaces in a +"Nubian way" once they took over the barren houses offered to them. + +Maher Habbob delves into a comparison of architectural and landscape +features before and after the resettlement. He does so by looking +closely at the legal, economic, social, and architectural upheavals that +took place at the village of Tūmās wa 'Afya during the various +constructions of the Low Dam and High Dam at Aswan. The resettlement of +this village resulted in a radically different environment and alien +houses -- neither of which accounted for traditional Nubian social +understandings of homescapes. It was left to the villagers to remodel +their new houses to make them into homes. + +Amany Abdelsadeq Sayed Hussein explores how the people of Abu Hor, a +Kenuz Nubian village, remade their homes and homeland in the aftermath +of their displacement in December 1964. In doing so, she also examines +her grandfather's house. Sadeq's interest in her family's experience of +resettlement and making a home resonates with her theoretical framework +about senses of home. Her work underscores the importance of the social +and emotional components of homescapes as well as the materiality of place +and landscape. + +Although these individuals creatively remodeled domestic space to better +suit traditional Nubian ways of dwelling in their new homes, some +traditions inevitably fell by the wayside. Armgard Goo-Grauer's +photographic essay of bridal rooms explores one of these traditional +practices that was lost with the resettlement. Bridal rooms had served +as a form of female self-expression at a critical time in a Nubian +woman's life course. Women carefully selected, created, and combined +objects and images in a single room as a hypnotic symbol of their new +roles as wives in a household. Considerable emotional and creative labor +went into the creation of these rooms and yet the practice ended +abruptly with the resettlement of Nubians into pre-fabricated houses. +These houses had no space for such rooms and Goo-Grauer describes how +female decorative ambitions refocused onto furnishings more commonplace +across Egypt more broadly. + +Meanwhile, the photographic essay by Anne M. Jennings reminds us that +not all Egyptian Nubians were resettled. Jennings shows us the houses +Nubians still occupy in the villages around Aswan. Although these houses +have deeper roots in the Nubian community, they too have been +refashioned over the years to accommodate the changing needs and desires +of their occupants. For example, in the five years between her 1981 and +1986 visits to Gubba, Jennings witnessed the transition from traditional +materials such as mud brick and mud plaster, to stone and tin. This +change, while less comfortable, allowed families to add a second storey +to their house, which is itself another departure from traditional +Nubian house design. By 2007, these Gubba houses had acquired tile +floors, air conditioning, glass windows, and modern appliances in +kitchens and bathrooms. These homes offer a powerful account of +incremental change driven by individuals in contrast to the ruptures +experienced by the uprooted Nubian communities described by other +contributors in this volume. + +Finally, Asmaa Taha's article examines how Egyptians characterize +Nubians by the way they speak Arabic, their mannerisms, their dress, and +other visual signifiers. Egyptian media, particularly in the form of +accessible soap operas and songs, fuel negative stereotypes of Nubians. +Taha spoke with Native Nobiin speakers to understand their perception of +these visual and linguistic stereotypes. Her informants offered a +diversity of views on these stereotypes -- age and gender seemed to have +critical influences on how they understood these representations. + +## Longue durée + +In his review of Derek Welsby's edited volume, *Archaeology by the +Fourth Nile Cataract*, Alexandros Tsakos takes up two themes that pulse +through many of the contributions to this volume -- the *longue durée* +of Nubian homescapes and the loss of homelands. Archaeological work in +the region of the Fourth Cataract, like much of Nubia, came into being +as a salvage expedition. Such expeditions have advantages and +disadvantages -- they take an enviably wide-ranging cultural and +disciplinary scope, but are painfully limited by time and resources. +Tsakos describes how these limits are noticeable in both the research +conducted and in the eventual volume. Tsakos dwells in particular on the +homescapes of the Manasir, which were documented before their ancestral +lands were flooded. He makes a strong argument for careful documentation +and sensitive publication given the ruptures created by this +indescribable loss. + +In my interview with Khalid Shatta, he often took a long-term +perspective on Sudan, on his artwork, and on himself. He mused on the +enduring issues in Sudan that create repeated patterns of loss and +resilience over the course of thousands of years. Shatta's reflection on +his own life as a Sudanese expatriate illustrates the emotional +complexity of homescapes and diaspora. His present home allows his mind +and body the freedom to produce art in a way that was not possible for +him in Sudan. Meanwhile, Sudan remains deeply embedded in his artwork -- +individuals from his hometown, emotions about the current war, and +symbols of both ancient and contemporary life appear and reappear +throughout his works. While his art does not avoid undercurrents of +violence, unrest, or displacement, it is also beautiful, haunting, and +even comforting. Here, Shatta shows us how one might harmonize between +the before and after of the homescapes that have been ruptured by war, +resettlement, and everyday change. + +# A Home for *Nubian Homescapes* + +When approaching a topic like Nubian homescapes, it is necessary to tear +down the walls between disciplines and genres. The complex emotional and +material terrain of homescapes requires art, photographic essays, +fiction, and a suite of academic approaches to navigate it. *Dotawo: A +Journal of Nubian Studies* is an appropriate home for these intertwining +perspectives. *Dotawo* has been open access since its launch in 2014. It +welcomes contributions from a diverse range of disciplines, languages, +and genres. I cannot imagine publishing a volume such as this one +anywhere else, both because I firmly believe that accessibility is an +ethical issue and because most journals remained siloed by discipline +and genre. I am grateful to *Dotawo* for making this volume possible, to +the contributors for pursuing unique vantages on Nubian homescapes, and +to the people of Sudan who are on our minds and in our hearts now more +than ever. + +# References + +Ingold, Tim. \"The Temporality of the Landscape.\" *Conceptions of Time +and Ancient Society/World Archaeology* 25, no. 2 (1993): 152--74. + +Janmyr, Maja. \"The Nubians of Egypt: A Displaced Population.\" In *An +Atlas of Contemporary Egypt*, edited by Hala Bayoumi and Karine Benafla, +96--7. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2023. + +Yao, Alice. \"The Great Wall as Destination? Archaeology of Migration +and Settlers under the Han Empire.\" In *Archaeologies of Empire: Local +Participants and Imperial Trajectories*, edited by Anna Lucille Boozer, +B.S. Düring, and Bradley J Parker, 57--88. Albuquerque, NM: SAR & UNM +Press, 2020. + +Youssef, Maaï, and Mayada Madbouly. \"Displaced People and Migrants in +Cairo.\" In *An Atlas of Contemporary Egypt*, edited by Hala Bayoumi and +Karine Benafla, 32--3. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2023. + +[^1]: For a basic geographic and temporal introduction to Nubia, see + Janmyr, \"The Nubians of Egypt: a displaced population.\" + +[^2]: Ingold, \"The Temporality of the Landscape.\" + +[^3]: Alice Yao described this process for the people who were relocated + to live along the Great Wall in Han China. See Yao, \"The + Great Wall as Destination? Archaeology of Migration and Settlers + under the Han Empire.\" + +[^4]: For an overview of the four main waves of Nubian settlement in + Cairo from 1902 until 1964, see Youssef and Madbouly, + \"Displaced People and Migrants in Cairo.\". + +[^5]: The High Dam (*as-Sad al-\'Aali*) was completed in 1970. The + reservoir reached its full capacity six years later.