This section discusses key concepts and theories relevant to our project.
What do we mean when we call something ‘prehistoric’? Does the term refer to times or people without a writing system? Does it imply that cultures before the beginning of history are inferior? Or does it simply describe a very early stage of human development, or even a period before the appearance of man on earth? Over the past decades the division into ‘prehistory’ and history proper has kindled heated academic debates. Read more...
“Coloniality of knowledge” is a theoretical concept adapted from the Latin American intellectual Aníbal Quijano into recent decolonial thinking in North America. It is based on the insight that colonial societies have systematically banished indigenous forms of knowledge from their archives, together with rejecting the media in which this knowledge was (and is) transported. Read more...
When different cultures meet, they influence each other. But how? In 1940, the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz (Fig.) introduced a concept that challenged the traditional view that cultural encounters only work in one direction. Instead he suggested that these are mutual processes during which some cultural characteristics may get lost, while new elements emerge. He termed this process ‘transculturation’. Read more...
