Teaching Archaeological Heritage Management. Towards a Change in Paradigms

ABSTRACT

The concept of archaeological heritage management (AHM) has been key to wider archaeological research and preservation agendas for some decades. Many universities and other education providers now offer what is best termed heritage management education (HME) in various forms. The emphasis is commonly on archaeological aspects of heritage in a broad sense and different terms are often interchangeable in practice. In an innovative working-conference held in Tampere, Finland, we initiated a debate on what the components of AHM as a course or curriculum should include. We brought together international specialists and discussed connected questions around policy, practice, research and teaching/training, at local, national, transnational and World Heritage levels. In this article we take the Tampere discussions further, focusing especially on the meaning, necessity, implications and prerequisites of interdisciplinary HME. We offer our thoughts on developing HME that reflects the contemporary aspects and needs of heritage and its management.

KEYWORDS:

• Archaeological heritage management
• heritage management education
• teaching and training
• practice
• research

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the University of Helsinki Future Fund’s support for the working-conference that led to this article. We also thank Pirkanmaa Provincial Museum, the City of Tampere, Friends of ICAHM and Newcastle University for in-kind support.

Finally, we thank all of the participants in the working-conference for their help in generating the debates and sharing their expertise and experience from which this article stems.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annemarie Willems

Annemarie Willems is the Executive Director for Friends of ICAHM, a non-profit that has been created to support the mission of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management (ICAHM). She holds a MA in Cultural Heritage from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. Since 2016 Annemarie Willems has run her own consultancy practice in heritage management, AW Heritage Consultancy. Annemarie started her PhD research at the University of Helsinki on the development of Heritage Management Education.

Suzie Thomas

Suzie Thomas is Professor of Cultural Heritage Studies and Docent in Museum Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Alicia Castillo Mena

Alicia Castillo Mena is Lecturer at the Complutense University of Madrid in the Prehistory Department. Her research lines and teaching include Archaeological Heritage and its relations to World Heritage.

Viktorija Čeginskas

Viktorija Čeginskas is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies and currently working on the research project ‘Legitimation of European Cultural Heritage and the Dynamics of Identity Politics in the EU’ (EUROHERIT) at the University of Jyväskylä (JYU), Finland.

Visa Immonen

Visa Immonen is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Turku, Finland.

Iida Kalakoski

Iida Kalakoski is a university teacher and researcher in history of architecture at the Tampere University of Technology.

Tuuli Lähdesmäki

Tuuli Lähdesmäki is an Academy Research Fellow (Academy of Finland) and an Adjunct Professor/Docent working in the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She is the principal investigator on the research project ‘Legitimation of European Cultural Heritage and the Dynamics of Identity Politics in the EU’ (EUROHERIT), funded by the European Research Council.

Ulla Lähdesmäki

Ulla Lähdesmäki works as an archaeological researcher at the Pirkanmaa Provincial Museum in Museum Centre Vapriikki, Tampere.

Margaret Gowen-Larsen

Margaret Gowen-Larsen is an archaeologist and heritage consultant with a deep interest in World Heritage, archaeological research, and all aspects of heritage management.

Arkadiusz Marciniak

Arkadiusz Marciniak is Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań.

Elena Pérez González

Elena Pérez González is Lecturer at the Universidad Europea de Canarias. Her lines of research and teaching are focused on archaeological heritage management and cultural tourism planning and management.

Cheryl White

Cheryl White is Senior Lecturer at the Anton de Kom University.

Aron D. Mazel

Aron D. Mazel is Reader in Heritage Studies at Newcastle University.