Whether as excavators and re-enactors, or co-organising research campaigns and outreach activities, the participation of the general public in archaeology has become a well-represented practice, but the impact remains underexplored. Evaluating participation can influence fieldwork practice and enrich the academic discussion on public archaeology.
Far from being a discipline focusing on the past, archaeology has boundless potential for engaging with people in the present. Encounters between archaeologists and the public with different pasts have the potential to create diverse participative dynamics. From the involvement of citizens as excavators and re-enactors to the co-organisation of research campaigns and outreach activities, public participation in archaeology has become a well-represented practice, fully incorporated into European and national cultural policies. However, the impact of this practice remains underexplored. Unforgettable Encountersdemonstrates how evaluating participation can critically influence daily practice on fieldwork, enrich the academic discussion in public archaeology, and inform the decision-making process in community-based planning. The book proposes an operational workflow, aiming to serve as a benchmark for archaeologists delivering collaborative programs in excavation-based projects. It offers a flexible set of tools, analyses, and visualisation boards which can provide a range of information about public participation and can inform the daily practice of fieldwork and the development of community projects. Three Italian case studies present the application of the operational workflow, testing its flexibility and effectiveness. By focusing on Italian community archaeology, this book aims to raise awareness of the importance of evaluating public participation in a country where this commitment has always been evident--especially in excavations--but where research on community archaeology itself has developed only in the last few years.
Heritage and Wellbeing examines what role heritage can play in creating healthier societies, exploring how heritage can improve people's wellbeing through a range of international case studies. These studies include Bangalore Fort, Imperial War Museum, Duxford, Biltmore Estate, and Chatsworth House. It presents significant new research in the field of wellbeing studies and public heritage, key chapters that evaluate museums, heritage sites, and archaeology providing evidence how these different activities pro-actively and positively influence wellbeing. Faye Sayer provides evidence of how visiting and engaging with heritage places could provide the key to healthier and happier societies, arguing the benefits of heritage should be regarded as a key player in improving wellbeing and mental health and reducing wellbeing inequality.
Genre studies and genre approaches to literacy instruction continue to develop in many regions and from a widening variety of approaches. Genre has provided a key to understanding the varying literacy cultures of regions, disciplines, professions, and educational settings. GENRE IN A CHANGING WORLD provides a wide-ranging sampler of the remarkable variety of current work. The twenty-four chapters in this volume, reflecting the work of scholars in Europe, Australasia, and North and South America, were selected from the over 400 presentations at SIGET IV (the Fourth International Symposium on Genre Studies) held on the campus of UNISUL in Tubarão, Santa Catarina, Brazil in August 2007—the largest gathering on genre to that date. The chapters also represent a wide variety of approaches, including rhetoric, Systemic Functional Linguistics, media and critical cultural studies, sociology, phenomenology, enunciation theory, the Geneva school of educational sequences, cognitive psychology, relevance theory, sociocultural psychology, activity theory, Gestalt psychology, and schema theory. Sections are devoted to theoretical issues, studies of genres in the professions, studies of genre and media, teaching and learning genre, and writing across the curriculum. The broad selection of material in this volume displays the full range of contemporary genre studies and sets the ground for a next generation of work.
The twentieth century saw a proliferation of media discourses on colonialism and, later, decolonisation. Newspapers, periodicals, films, radio and TV broadcasts contributed to the construction of the image of the African “Other” across the colonial world. In recent years, a growing body of literature has explored the role of these media in many colonial societies. As regards the Italian context, however, although several works have been published about the links between colonial culture and national identity, none have addressed the specific role of the media and their impact on collective memory (or lack thereof). This book fills that gap, providing a review of images and themes that have surfaced and resurfaced over time. The volume is divided into two sections, each organised around an underlying theme: while the first deals with visual memory and images from the cinema, radio, television and new media, the second addresses the role of the printed press, graphic novels and comics, photography and trading cards.
From the American Side I went to the USSR for the first time in 1982 to attend the 11th meeting of the International Union for Quaternary research (INQUA) held at the Moscow State University. At that time relations between our two countries were anything but congenial and many restrictions were placed on our viewing the archaeological and paleontological collections and labora tory facilities. This was not the ideal climate for the free exchange of ideas needed for meaningful research. However, it was obvious to us that the strained relations did not extend to scientific discussions between scholars. We left that meeting well aware that if the problems of prehistoric Old World-New World relationships were to be resolved, it would eventually require cooperative research efforts within the world community of archaeologists. At that time, the pre-Clovis problem in New World archaeology was foremost in the minds of many North American researchers: tool technology and assemblages were being studied as a possible means of establishing cultural relationships across the Bering Strait, Clovis sites and mammoth kills were being looked at with new ideas for interpretation, and New World researchers realized that to resolve these questions they had to become familiar with the archaeological record of northeast Asia. A chance meeting of the writer with Olga Soffer in 1983 led to serious discussions of the sites on the Russian or East European Plain.
The Great War of 1914-1918 now stands at the furthest edge of living memory. And yet, hardly a month passes without some dramatic and sometimes tragic discovery being made along the old killing fields of the Western Front. Graves of British soldiers buried during battle – still lying in rows seemingly arm in arm or found crouching at the entrance to a dugout; whole 'underground cities' of trenches, dugouts and shelters have been preserved in the mud; field hospitals carved out of the chalk country of the Somme marked with graffiti; unexploded bombs and gas canisters – all of these are the poignant and sometimes deadly legacies of a war we can never forget. Killing Time digs beneath the surface of war to uncover the living reality left behind. Nicholas J. Saunders brings together a wealth of discoveries to offer fresh insights into the human and often barbaric aspect of warfare. He uses discoveries in the trenches, family photographs, diaries and souvenirs to give the dead a voice. You cannot fail to be fascinated and moved by what he unearths.
This book brings together interdisciplinary research from the fields of Anthropology, Sociology, Archaeology, Art, History and Religious Studies, showing the necessity of a transdisciplinary and diachronic approach to examine the last half-century of modern arts and performance festivals. The volume focuses on new theoretical and methodological approaches for the examination of festivals and festival cultures, both the Burning Man festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert and burner culture in Europe. The editors argue that festival cultures are becoming values-inflected global forms of travel, dwelling, festivity, communication, and social organisation that are transforming contemporary cultures and have significant political capital.
This volume examines the various facets of public archaeology practice globally, and the factors which are currently affecting it, together with the question of how different publics and communities engage with their archaeological heritage.
