The interview offers a unique personal reflection of fifty years in archaeology and Africa provided by Professor Randi Haaland, a Norwegian archaeologist with a distinctive anthropological perspective and global research interests. The conversation progresses from her formative experience as a young woman among the Fur in Sudan in the mid-1960s, through her research between archaeological paradigms, to the capacity-building programmes she initiated in Africa and Asia with the support of the Norwegian Agency for Development and Cooperation.