An Archaeology of Colonial Identity: Power and Material Culture in the Dwars Valley, South Africa

by Gavin Lucas

This book examines how colonial identities were constructed in the Cape Colony of South Africa since its establishment in the 17th century up to the 20th century. It takes an explicitly archaeological approach, which also draws more widely on documentary material to examine how different people in the colony – from settler to slave – constructed identities through material culture. With the archaeological evidence, the book examines how these different groups were enmeshed within racial, sexual, and class ideologies in the broader context of capitalism and colonialism, and draws extensively on current social theory, in particular post-colonialism, feminism, and Marxism.

Paperback

First published August 12, 2004

About the author

Gavin Lucas is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Iceland, where has been teaching since 2002. His main interests lie in archaeological method and theory as well as the archaeology of the modern world, with a special focus on the North Atlantic.