“The People of Ghazali”: a consideration of community engagement in bioarchaeology

Community engagement approaches, along with the development of capacity building and knowledge transfer under the aegis of such, have grown rapidly in recent years within archaeology as a discipline. With increasing adaptation of community-engaged methodologies among archaeological projects in Sudan have come additional opportunities for further engagement in the realm of bioarchaeological research. Given the unique aspects of bioarchaeology centered around documentation of burials and analyses of skeletal remains, a key arena of engaged approaches has been the development of dedicated workshops to provide methodological training in conjunction with hands-on opportunities during fieldwork. Such capacity development plays an important role in facilitating bioarchaeological inquiry and remains a component of project development in Sudanese contexts that discussion with local stakeholders has demonstrated to be desirable and sought where possible. Such capacity development through three methodologically driven bioarchaeology workshops in conjunction with opportunities for engaging with individuals in Khartoum around bioarchaeological approaches was undertaken in the winter of 2022 as a component of “The People of Ghazali: Tracing the Human Experience in a Nubian Desert Monastic Community (680–1275 CE)” project. This paper explores the dynamics of capacity development and community engagement in the context of bioarchaeological research in Sudan.