Foodways in West Africa: an integrated approach on pots, animals and plants

Mouhamet Traoré has studied at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop (Dakar, Senegal), where he has earned both a B.A. and an M.A. in Pre-History, Archaeology and Medieval History. Master's thesis:  "Religion, espace, culture matérielle. L’impact de l’Islam dans la moyenne vallée du fleuve Sénégal, du Tékrour aux Almamis" (supervision: Prof. Alioune Dème).

Mouhamet Traoré has participated in archaeological excavations in the Senegal river valley and in several video documentary projects. Moreover, he has been trained as a underwater archaeologist, has worked as a community manager for the Senegalese Department of Cultural Heritage and has organised various educational trips within Senegal.

More recently, he has been a visiting scholar at the Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznań, Poland), as well as a research fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA), where he has participated in the development of the "Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara" exhibition (2020).

Within the SNSF-Sinergia project "Foodways in West Africa", he will research French and Arabic manuscript sources held in archives and libraries in Senegal.

"Introducing New York to the Cultural Wealth of Medieval West Africa", 4 June 2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/now-at-the-met/2020/sahel-research-fellows (with Oumy Mbaye).

"Apport des sources arabes à l’histoire de l’Afrique sub-saharienne. L’exemple des pratiques alimentaires", Second annual meeting of the SNSF project Foodways in West Africa: an Integrated Approach on Pots, Animals and Plants, zoom meeting between Switzerland, France and Senegal, 28-29 October 2020.

"Development of underwater archaeological training and researches in Senegal", Third Warsaw Seminar on Underwater Archaeology, University of Warsaw (Poland), 17-18 January 2020.

"Jeunes, Humanités et Patrimoine africain", round table at the Banjul Regional Forum 2019. Engaging Young African Leaders in Achieving the 2030 and 2063 Agendas, Banjul (Gambia), 29-30 October 2019.

"Cohésion islamo-chrétienne au Sénégal. L'exemple des fêtes religieuses", international conference on Interreligious Cooperation in Selected Countries of the World and in Poland, Cardinal Wyszyński University (Warsaw, Poland), 26 October 2018.