Speaker: Sabrina Amrane
How did people, goods, and ideas move across the Sahara in the period from approximately 700 - 1600 CE?
When describing West Africa in this period, textbook accounts often focus on the trans-Sahara trade in gold and salt, but the reality is much more complex! This presentation explores the interconnected geographies that stretched from the Mediterranean deep into the West African sahel. Learn about a wide range of trade goods, West African empires, the cities and settlements that were nodes on the trade routes, and some of the people and processes involved in these interactions. Students will come away with a deeper understanding of the unique network that connected African cities to each other and to other regions over a period of several centuries.
About the Speaker
Sabrina Amrane is a graduate student at UC Berkeley, with a focus on African history. Specifically, her research explores the political thrust of major but overlooked oasis cities within the wider trans-Saharan network, interactions between key Saharan actors and coastal imperial rule, and conceptions of territoriality within a nomadic milieu in the medieval Maghrib. Drawing on repositories of written material and collecting oral histories, she aims to examine the geographic imagination of Arabs and Berbers in the central Algerian Sahara.
Suggested Audiences
Age: 6th - 12th grade. This talk is not funded for community college settings.
Preparation: There is no preparation necessary. However, students would benefit from an introductory lesson related to the interactive Gold Road website. A simple scavenger hunt activity (locating a list of geographic features, empires, and cities) would familiarize students with the region and make for a richer presentation experience. We also recommend following up with additional lessons from the Gold Road website or this set of three interconnected lessons
Courses: World History, Human Geography