'Sex'-on-the-rocks: Geometric rock art and musical expressions amongst the African Pygmy forest hunter-gatherers in search of 'balance', 'harmony'

Mon 22 April

Wolfson College

Overview:
Drawing on the geometric rock art of Uganda, this presentation offers an interpretation of the imagery and musical expressions of African Pygmy forest hunter-gatherers. Using a contextual interpretive approach based on archaeological evidence, relevant ethnographies, previous scholarship and primary fieldwork, provides a key to unlocking how these groups experienced their cosmos as a place of balance and harmony, demonstrating the associations of rock art, sex, music/songs as strategies of social organisation with reverence to the 'forest'. In so doing, the geometric rock art of Uganda is placed into a new conceptual framework stressing societal affiliations, and unlocking aspects of these hitherto not understood.

This talk will be chaired by Dr Anna M. Dempster.


Speaker:
Dr Catherine Namono is Uganda's first female to obtain a PhD in Archaeology, a Senior Lecturer at the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and currently a Newton Trust Visiting Fellow of the Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge. Her research focus is on developing an understanding of the complex symbolism of rock art in Africa especially that of Early Farming communities, pastoralists, and Pygmy forest hunter-gatherers. Her research sites are mainly in South and eastern Africa. Dr Namono is interested in the production of archaeological/heritage knowledge largely from an emic perspective, and de(re)colonial discourse on the constituents of heritage, management, and consumption in these parts of Africa.


Details:
This event is open to all and free to attend - book your place.

This event is organised by Wolfson's REACH Research Hub, an interdisciplinary meeting place for the promotion and facilitation of culturally diverse research.


Access:
This event will take place in Gatsby Room on the first floor of the Chancellor's Centre. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located each floor of the building.

Cost: Free