About this book:

"The Archive and the Field: Historiography and Sources in African History" serves as an essential guide for researchers, particularly graduate students and early-career historians, navigating the multifaceted landscape of African historical evidence. The book posits that African history is constructed through an interplay of archival research and fieldwork, both of which are embedded in power dynamics. It meticulously outlines strategies for critically engaging with various source types, ranging from traditional colonial and postcolonial state archives to less conventional repositories like missionary, commercial, and NGO records, as well as community-led archives. A significant portion emphasizes field methods, including oral traditions and oral history, underscoring the importance of language, translation, and community collaboration in generating historical knowledge.

The handbook delves into a comprehensive array of evidentiary forms beyond written texts, exploring material culture (objects, landscapes, built environments), legal records, police and intelligence dossiers, newspapers and periodicals, and visual and aural histories (photographs, film, sound). It also addresses the rapidly evolving digital landscape, covering born-digital data, web archives, and social media, alongside quantitative methods like censuses and trade data, and spatial history utilizing GIS and remote sensing. For each source type, the book provides practical guidance on access, interpretation, and critical analysis, advocating for a "reading against the grain" approach to uncover biases, silences, and submerged narratives within records shaped by power.

Throughout the text, a strong emphasis is placed on ethical research practices. Chapters are dedicated to informed consent, care, risk management, and the crucial principles of collaboration and reciprocity with communities and institutions. The book challenges extractive research models, promoting partnerships that build local capacity, ensure fair compensation, and facilitate the return and preservation of knowledge within the communities that generated it. This includes detailed discussions on research design, field logistics, data management, and open scholarship, ensuring that methodological rigor is always paired with ethical responsibility and a commitment to decolonizing historical inquiry.

Ultimately, "The Archive and the Field" is more than a methodological guide; it's a call to action for historians to engage with African pasts with intellectual adventurousness, critical self-awareness, and profound respect for the people and materials involved. It encourages researchers to view sources not as inert facts but as dynamic traces of human relationships and struggles, advocating for transparency in method, responsible stewardship of evidence, and a recognition that the future of African historical evidence depends on collaborative, ethical, and community-centered practices.

What You'll Find Inside:

• How to critically analyze colonial archives by reading against the grain to uncover power dynamics, silences, and hidden meanings in official records
• Practical methodologies for conducting oral history interviews and working with oral traditions, including ethical considerations and performance analysis
• Approaches to using material culture, landscapes, and built environments as historical evidence through object analysis and spatial methods
• Ethical frameworks for research consent, care, reciprocity, and community collaboration that move beyond extractive practices
• Guidance on navigating digital sources, web archives, social media data, and quantitative methods while managing preservation and reproducibility

Who's It For:

This book is designed for graduate students and early-career historians specializing in African studies who need practical, ethically grounded guidance on conducting archival and field-based research. It will also benefit experienced researchers seeking to refine their methodological approaches, particularly those working with diverse source types ranging from colonial documents to digital media and community archives. The text serves as a comprehensive research companion for anyone aiming to produce historically rigorous work that engages critically with the politics of evidence in African historical studies.