The Human Evolution Research Institute (HERI) has been awarded a prestigious Wenner-Gren Foundation Workshop Grant to support its role facilitating dialogue and best practices for decolonisation in palaeoanthropology.
The grant, totalling USD 20,000, is earmarked for a first-of-its-kind workshop titled, "Theorising a More Socially Responsive Practice in African Palaeoanthropology" to be held in Cape Town, South Africa.
Planned for July 2025, participants will explore how palaeoanthropologists working in Africa can engage with socially responsive practice as a means for decolonising the discipline.
“We want to shift the way palaeoanthropology is done, so that the discipline itself is transformed,” says HERI Co-director Professor Rebecca Ackermann, the lead grant holder and workshop organiser.
Best practice guidelines
Palaeoanthropology in Africa has since its inception been intertwined with colonial pursuits, race science and racism. Recent efforts to confront this legacy have shown that systematic transformation is needed, including training and supporting local scientists to aid capacity building, combatting ‘helicopter science’, and working with and for local communities.
“While there has been general support for such transformative efforts, there is currently no roadmap for how this can be accomplished by researchers or institutions,” explains Ackermann.
The workshop aims to fill that gap by co-creating best practice guidelines to help researchers move away from extractive science and a unidirectional dissemination of knowledge toward more engaged, ethical and relevant research practice.
Participants will include researchers at African institutions and Africans across the diaspora who conduct research on the continent including several HERI members who are leaders in palaeoanthropology.
A rich history of socially responsive practice will be added by the workshop venue, the !Khwa ttu San Heritage Centre, which will catalyse linkages with local community leaders while further reinforcing African research networks.
Recognising the need
Reviewers of the Wenner-Gren grant specifically praised the workshop’s aims to go beyond criticism of helicopter science and focus on co-creating models for ethical engagement to help the field move forward.
The foundation’s support is recognition of the important role socially responsive practice plays in palaeoanthropology, which means acknowledging the social, cultural and ethical implications of research and actively seeking to address them.
It also means acknowledging that palaeoanthropological research impacts living communities, indigenous peoples and broader society, and enabling research to be conducted in ways that are respectful, inclusive and beneficial to all involved.
The need for this cannot be understated. According to research from Ackermann and HERI’s Lauren Schroeder, the co-organiser of this workshop, high-profile researchers and their teams are still majority foreign and white, reaping intellectual benefit and prestige, including first authorship. Meanwhile, field workers are generally local and black, remaining primarily paid field help.
“Disrupting this dynamic requires a collaborative approach and support from leaders in our discipline who can help pave the way for change,” says Schroeder.
“Wenner-Gren should be recognised for taking on that role, providing important international investment in decolonisation in Africa.”