Foreman Bandama

Institution: Field Museum of Natural History and University of Illinois, Chicago

Foreman Bandama (PhD) is an archaeologist who specializes in the archaeology and technology of the African Iron Age materials relating to pre-industrial ceramics, glass beads and metallurgy, as well as African heritage. His research thrust is anchored by the need to re-position Africa at the center of global discourse by highlighting the continent’s achievements through materials studies that marry methods from the “hard” and “social” sciences. Foreman’s archaeometallurgical work straddles these disciplines but more significantly, his methods for analyzing metals and their by-products, overlap with those used on other proxies that traditionally fall outside of this domain, such as glass beads and ceramic petrography. Dr Bandama’s work also draws liberally from both African theory and his personal experiences as a product of a rural crafting Tsonga family from Zimbabwe. Foreman is particularly interested in African innovations and achievements relating to complex societies and their interactions with the outside world, as well as a deep focus on decoloniality in heritage and archaeology. Among his long-term projects are exploring crafts, class and state formation at Great Zimbabwe, as well as African archaeometallurgical studies.