Will BP fund BM conservation internships?

One of the museum’s success stories, BP has given millions of pounds to the BM since 1996, but apparently neither of them can afford to cover the cost of the national minimum wage for the BM’s conservation interns.

Ukraine: democratic and transparent government, democratic and transparent management

Ukrainian cultural workers have petitioned parliament for expert and democratic, clean and transparent management of the cultural sector.

Ataturk and archaeologists’ employment

Last year, Kayıp Kültür Varlıkları (Looted Heritage) wrote a post about Ataturk and archaeologists’ employment (Atatürk ve Arkeolog İstihdamı), which addressed the problems faced by the profession in Turkey in the early Twentieth Century and in the early Twenty-First Century…

This, is, Prato!

As archaeologist Alessandro d’Amore notes, there has been ‘another collapse at Pompeii [un altro crollo a Pompei]’; and there is ‘growing indignation [crescente indignazione]’ in the profession/the country that the technocratic/austerity administrations are allowing – and, ultimately, causing – this to happen. Putting cultural heritage, workers’ livelihoods and the profession’s sustainability at further risk, the current administration is now trying to consolidate a poor, insecure workforce in order to disguise the cultural workforce’s inadequate funding, staffing and activity.

BAJR Forum and Facebook discussion of #freearchaeology: clarifications and queries

Expleting about unpaid labour used to be a handy distraction from life on the dole. And it is even more so now, as I am forced to literally perform ever more futile job searches in order to earn my subsistence. But suddenly the concentrated #freearchaeology conversation, which was started by Emily Johnson (@ejarchaeology), is everywhere – (more) blogs, Twitter, Facebook, professional forums, citizen media (USI Live at 1.30pm GMT on Thursday) – so I’m going to try to make a few key clarifications and queries here.

free archaeology: volunteering, training and crowdfunding

When Emily Johnson (@ejarchaeology) said that she was ‘contemplating blogging about the problematic subject of volunteers in arch[aeology] and heritage’, she generated (the archaeological equivalent of) a Twitter(-only) storm (which has been hashtagged #freearchaeology). Emily was worried that it might ‘ruffle to[o] many feathers‘. Lucy Shipley (@lshipley805) too made a ‘[c]onfession: [she was] frightened to even post this blog’, she ‘didn’t want to be accused of… not wanting to do hard work to get rewards, of being lazy’. Thankfully, the dole has made me fatalistic.