Session: #605

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
Archaeology and the European Year of Cultural Heritage
Session format:
Discussion session: round table

Title & Content

Title:
Training Archaeologists for Transnational Mobility (Annual Round Table of the EAA Committee on the Teaching and Training of Archaeologists)
Content:
In a Europe without borders, archaeologists can be and increasingly are required to be transnationally mobile. International online jobs resources for archaeology provide those in search for jobs with opportunities in countries they may never have thought about when starting their archaeology degrees. Many who want a career in archaeology pick up these opportunities and apply for posts abroad; not just in the academic sector, where this has long been the case, but also in the commercial, the museum and the heritage management sectors.
Archaeology degrees, on the other hand, still mostly seem to be focused on the archaeology of the area the University teaching them is located in, or some specific area its staff are interested in. What training is provided in museology, heritage management, and even commercial skills, tends to be specific to the local labour market, too; if it considers the future career opportunities of students at all.
In this round table, we intend to discuss whether archaeological training provided is sufficiently broad and internationally applicable to qualify graduates for a transnational career in archaeology. Are we doing enough in our curricula to prepare them? What can we do better to get them ready to move where the archaeological jobs are? Do we need to develop European Standards in teaching and training at least some core skills that transnationally mobile archaeologists will need in the future?
Keywords:
Teaching, Training, Transnational Mobility, Europe
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
yes
Session associated with SAfA:
no

Organisers

Main organiser:
Professor Dr Raimund Karl (United Kingdom) 1
Co-organisers:
Dr Sarah Kerr (Ireland) 2
Kenneth Aitchison (United Kingdom) 3
Doug Rocks-Macqueen (United Kingdom) 3
Alessandro Pintucci (Italy) 4
Arek Marciniak (Poland) 5
Affiliations:
1. Bangor University
2. Trinity College Dublin
3. Landward Research Ltd.
4. Confederazione Italiana Archaeologi
5. Adam Mickiewicz University Institute of Archaeology