16th December 2010, 10:50 AM
(This post was last modified: 16th December 2010, 10:54 AM by the invisible man.)
I'm not actually seeing a huge problem with any of this (you and me against the world, Timber!). Yes certainly there are the arguments for local/regional units, with their local knowledge and expertise and so on, but I see that as a separate issue. Since PPG16 that is not the way it works, whether that is is right or wrong is not the point here, that is the system. Within the existing system, council units are indeed an anachronism, at worst subject to accusations of unfair trading - copping jobs from their buddies in curatorial hats next door, and not having truly commercial overheads. Again, whether these accusations are justified or not is irrelevant: the justice of the thing not only has to be done, it must be seen to be done. Nor is any of this peculair to archaeology: many years ago councils were privatising/flooging off architect's departments for example (Essex architects were sold off to Atkins donkeys years ago). School dinners and dustbin collections are generally privatised (even if the tender is miraculously won by the council's service). These latter two examples are probably more logically and usefully kept within the publioc sector than commercial archaeological activities.
Nor am I totally convinced that "expansionism" is necessarily a totally bad thing. It strikes me as an inevitable consequence of the commercial archaeology industry/profession (as you prefer) coming of age. Rather than a couple of evil empires hoovering (or perhaps Dysoning...) up all the work, with a wicked cackle and much twirling of moustaches, I imagine a more likely scenario is that they become capable of taking on much larger mega-projects (indeed, that is largely their raison d'etre) and losing interest in smaller jobs. Medium and smaller outfits continue to thrive on smaller and more 'local' projects - it's a case of horses for courses. Again, this is is the case in other industries. There is a range of sizes of construction firms, for example, from those building airports and Scottish parliament buildings to those doing sub-100, 000 pound jobs (and I'm not even counting local jobbing builders doing kitchen extensions). Professionally, architects range from firms of several hundred staff, in numerous offices possibly in several countries, down to one and two person bands. Thus the market is covered and there's something for everyone. I see no cause for alarm as commercial archaeology joins the real world.
Of course, this recession thing throws a bit of a spanner in the works. Yet again though, I suspect it will affect more than just archaeology and archaeologists. Construction gets similalrly decimated - the big recession of the early 90s lost thousands of skilled tradesmen and specialist subcontractors which have never been adequately replaced.
I believe the following is considered appropriate: :face-stir:
Nor am I totally convinced that "expansionism" is necessarily a totally bad thing. It strikes me as an inevitable consequence of the commercial archaeology industry/profession (as you prefer) coming of age. Rather than a couple of evil empires hoovering (or perhaps Dysoning...) up all the work, with a wicked cackle and much twirling of moustaches, I imagine a more likely scenario is that they become capable of taking on much larger mega-projects (indeed, that is largely their raison d'etre) and losing interest in smaller jobs. Medium and smaller outfits continue to thrive on smaller and more 'local' projects - it's a case of horses for courses. Again, this is is the case in other industries. There is a range of sizes of construction firms, for example, from those building airports and Scottish parliament buildings to those doing sub-100, 000 pound jobs (and I'm not even counting local jobbing builders doing kitchen extensions). Professionally, architects range from firms of several hundred staff, in numerous offices possibly in several countries, down to one and two person bands. Thus the market is covered and there's something for everyone. I see no cause for alarm as commercial archaeology joins the real world.
Of course, this recession thing throws a bit of a spanner in the works. Yet again though, I suspect it will affect more than just archaeology and archaeologists. Construction gets similalrly decimated - the big recession of the early 90s lost thousands of skilled tradesmen and specialist subcontractors which have never been adequately replaced.
I believe the following is considered appropriate: :face-stir: