Robyn d’Avignon (NYU), “A Ritual Geology: Gold and Subterranean Knowledge in Savannah West Africa” (Yale History)

Robyn d’Avignon is an historian and anthropologist of West Africa at New York University. Her interests include the history of science, nature and technology, ethnic and state formation, and sacred engagements with the earth. Her first book, A Ritual Geology, explores the pre-colonial and colonial roots of contemporary conflicts over mineral discovery and property rights in West Africa’s gold mining boom. The book spans developments on goldfields in Senegal, Mali, and Guinea.