From Archaeological Education to Protection of Cultural Heritage Sites: campaigning on Archaeology and Cultural Heritage in a rapidly changing social context

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Albanian experience with campaigning for some important issues of archaeology and Cultural Heritage. It does this by paying special attention to the social context in which this process has unfolded, particularly in the last decade; namely, a society which has changed dramatically since the end of the last century, and still is struggling its way through, towards a stable and prosperous liberal democracy. As such, we hope that through some case studies and several Lessons Learned from them, to be able to provide some more colors to the European mosaic of diverse experiences with this rather neglected aspect of our disciplines. The final version of the paper has benefited greatly from the information, discussions and viewpoints expressed by the participants of the EAA session in Budapest. They widened the scope of our analysis and provided a context for the interpretation of the Albanian experience with campaigning for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Before discussing some case studies, we briefly analyze the context of campaigns and the place that Archaeology and Heritage occupies in the contemporary Albanian society.