Disciplinary Déjà Vu: Interdisciplinarity and the Eastern African 'Khoisan'

The Hadza and Sandawe are typically described as descendants of deep-time lineages capable of providing insight into Africa’s - and humanity’s - past. Drawing on science and technology studies, this talk provides a critical genealogy of how the Hadza and Sandawe came to be categorized as linguistically, biologically, and culturally "Khoisan." It ends with a discussion of how this categorization has both facilitated and limited investigations of northern Tanzania's prehistory. If time allows, a brief overview of archaeological fieldwork conducted in the Sandawe homeland between 2015 and 2018 informed by this genealogical critique will be described.