Zoe Crossland

(Professor of Anthropology)

“Rethinking Landscape”

Friday, May 8, 2026 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM

807 Schermerhorn Hall

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The seminar will also be available on Zoom

Abstract
This presentation reviews the history and aesthetics of landscape theory in archaeology. I explore the different inherited landscapes that we work and live within and explore the concept of landscape in the context of the historical reshaping of rice landscapes in highland Madagascar. I take my cue from the remembered speeches of the 18th century king of highland Madagascar who insisted that “rice is my friend and my equal”. This offers a different starting point from which to explore the politics and histories of place, with resonances that go well beyond highland Madagascar.

Biography

Zoë Crossland’s research deals with the historical archaeology of Madagascar, and with evidential practices around human remains. Her approach to historical inquiry is informed by Peircean “semeiotics,” which she uses to explore the imbrication of the material and the immaterial, the human and the nonhuman.

The research Crossland has undertaken in Madagascar has been concerned with archaeologies of encounter, including a consideration of how material traces in the landscape made the dead present as historical actors (2014). She is now working with colleagues Chantal Radilmilahay, Bako Rasoarifetra and Rafolo Andrianaivoarivony on the history of irrigated riziculture in the highlands, with a particular focus on the constitution of sovereignty through and with the partnership of rice plants, paddy fields and irrigation structures.