Bassey Wai Andah and archaeological thought

During the final years of his career, Bassey Andah served as the President of the World Archaeological Congress. His election to this post was in part a recognition of the crucial role of advocacy and leadership that he had adopted during the traumatic emergence of that organization, in the context of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa (Ucko 1987: 241). However, it can also be seen as reflecting the extraordinary contribution that Andah had made in thinking through what it meant to be a practicing archaeologist in a non-First World setting. By the time that the present author came to work with him in the capacity of WAC Secretary, he had undergone a unique intellectual odyssey, as a consequence of having first absorbed Euro-American archaeological thinking, and subsequently having reflected upon it from the perspective of the post-colonial African experience. His political commitments provided him with a source of critique that he was able to turn upon the theories and methodologies that had been employed in African archaeology, developing a distinctive perspective that grew progressively more radical and more profound.