Challenge, Change, and Common Ground: The Role of Socially Engaged Practice in Community Archaeology in Modern Europe
Europe is divided. Nations and nationalities and identities are drawn, redrawn, refuted, rejected, and re-defined in a constant cycle of conflict and change. Narratives of both belonging and othering are constructed, and the past is a tool in their construction.
Archaeological research is reported and re-framed to form ‘evidence’ for ideological arguments from across the political spectrum. At the same time, heritage sites, public bodies, academic institutions, and community projects are under intense political pressure
to quantify their social impact and ‘value’. This is largely measured economically, using inadequately designed monitoring and evaluation tools that struggle to capture the personal, wellbeing, cultural impact of archaeology on individuals and communities.
Borders across which collaboration previously flowed are closing, stifling the passage of both archaeologists and archaeological discourse. Archaeology as a discipline is beginning to act upon broader societal changes, such as the need to examine decolonisation
of its practice and the admission of a lack of diversity - but this change has come slowly and not without contention and conflict.
The community archaeologist can be neither apolitical nor apathetic in the face of these challenges and changes. The tangible and intangible barriers to access of archaeological sites, projects, and research must be navigated through practice that balances
accessibility, innovation, and inclusion with quality research and impactful outcomes.
This session invites contributors working on socially engaged practice - that which has a co-creative, democratic, community-driven, inclusive, value-driven design and implementation - to share their successes and failures in this field, and hold a wider
debate on its value and impact upon both archaeology and the public perception of social issues in Europe today.