Heritage Under Pressure – Threats and Solution: Studies of Agency and Soft Power in the Historic Environment

Heritage under Pressure examines the relationship between the political perspective of the UK government on 'soft power' and the globalising effect of projects carried out by archaeologists and heritage professionals working in the historic environment. It exemplifies the nature of professional engagement and the role of the profession in working towards a theory of practice based on the integrity of data, the recovery and communication of information, and the application of data in real world situations. Individual papers raise complex and challenging issues, such as commemoration, identity, and political intervention. A further aim of the volume is to illustrate the role of professionals adhering to standards forged in the UK, in the context of world heritage under pressure. Papers also contribute to the emerging agenda developing as a result of the re-orientation of the UK following the Brexit vote, at once emphasising the global aspiration of the Uk’s professional archaeological body – the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists – in relation to the global reach of UK academic practice. By implication the volume also addresses the relationship between professional practice and academic endeavour. The volume as a whole contributes to the emerging debate on the authorised heritage discourse and provides an agenda for the future of the profession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Sep 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789252477

Book preview

Part 1

Heritage Under Pressure

Chapter 1

Introduction: Profession, discourse and agency

Michael Dawson

The origin of this volume lies with the Chartered Institute for Archaeologist’s 2017 Conference Archaeology: a Global Profession (the ‘Conference’). The stated purpose of the Conference was set out in the Chair’s brief Introduction. It was an opportunity to ‘debate the value of international connections and supranational organisations’. The implied question behind the Conference title was made explicit in the keynote address by Felipe Criado-Boada, President of the European Association of Archaeology (EAA) and Peter Hinton, the Chief Executive of the Institute, who both emphasised the value of established professional standards, respect for the profession and the value archaeology brings to society and business. The origins of the Conference lie in the text of a discourse which constitutes the agency of CIfA. It was, therefore, a shop window for archaeological practice and for the role of the CIfA in promoting good practice on a world stage.

What constitutes good, occasionally ‘best’, practice has been well rehearsed in publications by the Institute and is specified in the Code of Conduct and the wide range of Standards and Guidance (CIfA 2019). The contexts in which those standards and guidance are applied are extremely varied, but the common theme of papers in this volume is the use of archaeological methodologies in environments and situations where heritage is under pressure. It is an essentially optimistic approach to professional practice. A brief survey of the press in the autumn of 2017 and 2018 revealed the range and complexity of threats which confront professional practice. Contamination at Partick (Baille 2017); a proposed rubbish dump near Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli (Squires 2018); the theft of artefacts in Canterbury (Knapton 2018); the destruction of civil war wrought in Syria; and the sites on the American eastern seaboard threatened by sea level rise (Choi 2017) constitute a snapshot of the extensive and varied nature of contemporary pressures. As we go to press the Romanian government, in a move described as unusual, has formally withdrawn the application to have the gold mining landscape of Roşia Montană inscribed as a World Heritage site, despite an ICOMOS recommendation that it is worthy of this status.

In broad terms threats can be divided into two: the result of human agency and as a consequence of natural events. The former encompasses a wide range of activity from global warming and corruption, theft and iconoclasm, to development or war; while natural events include a diversity of factors from earthquakes and flood to fire and tidal erosion. Yet there is increasing appreciation of the interrelationship between natural events and human agency evident in global warming. As the research pioneered by Jennifer Leaning (2017) has shown, the civil war in Syria was sparked in 2011 by the pressure of widespread migration from the eastern desert regions to the western coastal towns after four years of drought. Meanwhile, the freedom to undertake archaeological research has increasingly encountered limitations due to sensitivities over human burial and first nation patrimony. While accommodation can often be achieved project by project, the local or regional character of such interests challenges the concept of a global profession.

The intra-professional debate and the discourse implied by the Conference title addressed and by this volume consequently draws attention to the contested nature of contemporary practice, the extensive range of physical threat and the wide spectrum of cultural contexts in which archaeology is undertaken. The relationship between CIfA, the professional association, and the global discipline is implicitly addressed by this volume through a series of papers based on case studies in a wide variety of locations, political and cultural circumstance.

Global profession

The sense of archaeology as a global profession stems from pleas to recognise archaeological deposits as the common heritage of humankind and hence deserving of appropriate treatment. The concept derives ultimately, Dingli (2006) has argued, from principles first identified by Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) whose observation that while the ownership of land was based on occupation, the sea in contrast was held in common. Stewardship of archaeological remains could, therefore, be seen in the same light and managed at a global level for the benefit of humankind, conserved for future generations and reserved for peaceful purposes. For this to be effective, the principles of subsidiarity and stewardship would be the guiding principles of heritage conservation rather than ownership. The concept of a common heritage addresses concerns that the interpretation of archaeology might be hijacked in support of excessive ideological claims over the past. In recent times it has led to the identification of World Heritage Sites. This has generated extensive critical literature beyond the scope of this volume, however, in recent years the designation of World Heritage status has become increasingly associated with narrow sectional interests whether state or indigenous community.

Yet as late as 1984 Green, in addressing the ethics of archaeology, argued the principal reason for undertaking archaeology remained research in pursuit of individual research aims (Green 1984, 123). Dunnell (1984), in the same volume, argued that moral issues arose because of practical applications, though archaeology had little or no value beyond research. As Knudson argued it was the ethical responsibility of archaeologists to affect the political arena for the benefit of the discipline. It was a time when archaeologists might have identified with ‘a worldwide consensus that long-term conservation of our cultural heritage was good for the human community’ (Knudson 1984, 245). Even at this time, though, archaeology carried out under the aegis of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) instigated by agencies other than archaeologists in the name of research was contested. CRM was seen, not as an archaeological strategy but primarily motivated by concerns for the impact on real estate. Archaeology carried out in these circumstances was a breach of trust, a fraud, where research was subordinate to development (Dunnell 1984, 70).

Significance, legally defined, which forms the basis of Cultural Resource Management, is not only a contingent factor situated in contemporary areas of scholarship, conservation practice and education, but a reflection of prevailing taste and fashion, influenced by globalisation. Stewardship, defined by the Society for American Archaeology in 1996, places archaeologists as ‘both caretakers of and advocates for the archaeological record for the benefit of all people; as they investigate and interpret the record, they should use the specialized knowledge they gain to promote public understanding and support for its long-term preservation’. This unifying standpoint was taken up by CIfA in the Standards and Guidance for Stewardship for the Historic Environment, working towards a common standard. However, the adoption of such standards by the Institute on behalf of its membership raises the key question of the extent to which they are influential and welcomed outside the Institute’s core geographical area of activity. Explicitly the promulgation of supranational standards and guidance of all forms through the activities of a diverse membership returns to the broader question of the relationship between the Institute and the global profession.

Until recently the impact of archaeological practice on the wider environment has received little attention. However, the rise to prominence of indigenous political movements in the United States and Australia together with increasing debate about the meaning of material culture and concern worldwide with the fate of cultural heritage has led to increased introspection (Smith 2004, 81–93). Yet, as the work of Hodges at Butrint has shown, archaeologists are willing to engage with the tourist industry and to argue for greater emphasis through publication on place making and the creation of memory. In the last quarter of the 20th century, recognition of the role of CRM as a technology of government following the work of Foucault (1991) has meanwhile placed increasing emphasis on the role of scholarship in establishing significance and value within the regulatory system. Furthermore, the role of the media and its portrayal of archaeology has highlighted the privileged position of archaeologists as the purveyors of technical and scientific data to the community. In England, though, where the role is well established within the planning framework, this is despite the political concern that archaeology in particular (ex litt Beachem 2005) has become a closed system, managed by a small group of specialists without adequate accountability.

As Smith has noted, the impact of archaeological scholarship is not neutral or passive in the context of state strategies (Smith 2004, 12). Nor is archaeological theory passive in relation to communities within society. In the context of indigenous groups, archaeological expertise can be important in defining identity, a sense of community, belonging and a sense of place. In communities bounded by class, social and ethnic alliances in advanced western democracies, the influence may be more nuanced but impacts still on a sense of nationality (cf. Schlanger 2018). More significantly, the acquisition of archaeological data and definition of significance, while for many contributes to a sense of inclusion allowing them to glimpse a part of the invisible, for others the nuanced and relativist approach of post-processual archaeology is confusing and alienating. For some groups the repeated assertion of simplistic interpretations or complex justifications of significance can be equally alienating (Tully et al. 2019).

Bureaucracies, the method by which this occurs within the regulatory environment, however, also have their own dynamic (Weber 1947), providing the institutions, policies and legislative framework, they have ensured that processual archaeology has become embedded in government (Smith 2004, 11). Subject to government policy, their formal tendency is towards social inclusion but can also be prone to populist policies. In England, for example, this may be exposed through ministerial decisions via such mechanisms as call in inquiries or public inquiry and through the influence of executive agencies such as Historic England and English Heritage as they compete in the annual spending review.

A potentially important influence on significance in the modern world is the process of globalisation. It affects both the conduct of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) and the individual owner through the art market and cultural context, museum practice and conservation. Used as a portmanteau term to express many aspects of international relationships outside the academy (Held et al. 2001, 1) recent analysis has identified three schools of thought: the hyperglobalist, the sceptical and the transformational. For the hyperglobalist the term represents the trend towards a situation in which the nation state ceases to function as a natural business unit. Founded in economic theory it signals the triumph of global markets and the establishment of transitional networks of production, trade and finance. Sceptics alternatively see the situation as one of increased internationalisation of trade between nation states and that the world is becoming increasingly regionalised. Such a view sees the trend towards the development of three trading blocks focused on Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. In contrast to the era of the gold standard, the world economy is in fact less integrated and nation states are increasingly drawn to greater centralisation of control. For the transformationalist thesis globalisation represents the process in which economic, military, technological, ecological, migratory, political and cultural flows are historically unprecedented. Rather than seeing globalisation acting to bring about the end of the nation state as the hyperglobalists maintain or agreeing with the sceptics that nothing much has changed, the transformationalist thesis argues that national governments have become increasingly outward looking in order to establish co-operative strategies and international regulatory frameworks to more effectively manage cross border issues. In this way the nation state is transformed by the influence of globalisation but in a way that is unpredictable and contingent (Schlanger 2018). The impact of globalisation in cultural terms relevant to the practice of archaeology is most visible in the range and scope of international conservation charters (Bell 1997); in the proliferation of international conventions on the illicit import, export and transfer of cultural property (Renfrew 2000); and in the development of museums towards ‘a global discursive system’ (Prosler 1996).

Institutional agency

The concept of agency in archaeology – the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment – is invoked as a means to understand the past as the product of individuals rather than broader-scale social practice. Similarly, theories of agency focus on both the ‘impact of the system on practice, and the impact of practice on the system’ (Ortner 1984, 148 quoted by Dornan 2002, 304). It is the latter which is important to this volume in addressing the relationship between CIfA and the global profession. CIfA’s position is analogous to many of the larger non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in that it seeks to influence practice devoid of legal force but expressed through declarations and resolutions and subscription to an ethical code which helps foster a universal set of values. This is essentially a contract between CIfA and its members under which transgressive behaviours can be regulated in a quasi-judicial process. In time the practices may influence legal instruments and the role of the Institute may become enhanced through involvement in helping to make international law more responsive.

Little research, though, has focused on the operation of institutional agency in the context of archaeological organisations. While over the past 60 years a sub-disciplinary interest in the history of archaeology has developed to the point at which it can be described as ‘as a keystone to any mature reading of the discipline’ (Murray and Evans 2002, 4), the nature of analysis is rooted in cultural biography, whether of individual archaeologists or institutions. Evans and Murray was one of two volumes emanating from the conference Archives, Ancestors Practices: Archaeology in the Light of its Practices Conference held in Göteberg (part of the Archives of European Archaeology project) with the second (Schlanger and Nordladh 2008) described as ‘leaving behind paradigms which rely on a unilinear story of progressive development’ (Wickham Jones 2009). This is a different approach from the one presented here, which in contrast to the analysis of developing archaeological theory approaches agency by focusing on the institutional and owes much to Giddens’ theory of structuration. The papers presented here represent ‘the reproduced conduct of situated actors with definite intentions and interests’ (Giddens 1993, 134).

The institutional agency of archaeological organisations in the UK has been addressed in recent scholarship in the context of the heritage debate and today CIfA, as an Institute for Archaeologists, acts within a discourse characterised by the recognition and identification of both authorising (AHD) and permissive heritage discourses (PHD). In the UK, Delafons (1997) and more recently Thurley (2013) have placed The Men from the Ministry centre stage in the creation of the AHD, yet as Thurley concedes ‘English identity is very closely bound up with the physicality of England … the bones of our heritage are the tangible and visible remains of our ancestors, their achievements, their industry and their ideas of beauty’. On a world stage too, there is an increasing interest, through publication, of the role of institutions in shaping national pasts. Examples such as Green (1984), cited above, Dysons’ Ancient Marbles to American Shores or Guha-Thakurta’s (2004) Monuments, Objects, Histories, Institutions of Art in Colonial and Post-Colonial India are clear evidence of an interest in the practice of archaeology through organisational and individual agency. However, as GuhaThakurta notes, while ‘administrative apparatus works in close tandem with the world of scholarship’ (Guha-Thakurta 2004, xvii) the focus of analysis though cognate of institutional agency is concerned with the development of national identities. The latter is a significant aspect of the emergence of heritage as an academic discipline which from the late 1980s (Harrison 2010) has been inextricably linked to the political discourse of nationalism, identity and post colonialism.

The authorised heritage discourse (AHD), Smith has argued, is reliant on the power/knowledge claims of technical and aesthetic experts and institutionalised in state cultural agencies and amenity societies. The AHD is a cultural concept exercised through legislation and may be seen as the means by which archaeologists have been instrumental in taking control of the resource. Relevant to this volume is the effect of AHD in constructing the discourse focused on the management and conservation of heritage sites (Smith 2004, 6–43). It is based on four key principles: that archaeological evidence is a finite and non-renewable resource, that archaeology is a matter of public concern, governed by legislation and subject to assessment of significance. Its operation has led to the assemblage of a representative sample of archaeology and regulation by professional codes of conduct (Carmen 1996, 5–6). The latter have been recognised at least since the 1980s as the principal means of regulating professional activity within the AHD (Green 1984).

In the UK the CIFA is clearly part of the AHD expressed through the Institute’s Strategic and Business Plans, evident in its consultative role and through its dominant position as the representative body for the profession. Its Code of Conduct and Standards and Guidance are part of the regulatory context of professional archaeological practice throughout the UK. In the context of a global profession, however the AHD is contested. Smith has argued persuasively that, by privileging the ‘innate aesthetic and scientific value and physicality of heritage, [the AHD] masks the real cultural and political work that heritage does’; that the technical process of management and conservation is in itself a cultural process that creates value and meaning, and ultimately that the AHD through management procedures embeds western cultural values and regulates dissonance. Instrumental in the maintenance of the AHD are the international charters, in particular the Hague and Venice Charters and the World Heritage Convention created by non-governmental organisations ICOMOS and UNESCO (Smith 2006, 87–88).

Dissonance was illustrated by Smith through the competing interests of palaeontologists, the Wanyi Aboriginal community, tourist operators, local government, mining companies, local pastoralists and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service in relation to the Riversleigh. This is a landscape within the Australian Fossil Mammal Sites World Heritage Area in which the AHD worked to validate national narratives, was deployed by different groups to legitimise their aspirations in areas such as tourism but also acted to marginalise subordinate groups in the creation of heritage value (Smith 2006, 162–192). More recently Hutchins has argued, at the Canadian Archaeology Association (CAA), that in relation to British Colombia’s Heritage Conservation Act that archaeology is perceived as ‘a firmly colonialist project driven by capitalism to produce narratives that remain elitist, racist, and pro-growth, development and progress’ (Hutchins 2017, xii). The issue was driven by the apparent complicity of archaeology in the destruction of intangible First Nation landscapes through the implementation of an archaeology which, as Smith had noted elsewhere, focused on the tangible privileging the physicality of heritage. In the context of the Global Profession the nature of communication is both complex and contested as an aspect of western hegemonic practice (Manolakakis 2016).

Soft power

CIfA has a regulatory function in the UK in relation to its membership and is increasingly cited in development contexts by local authorities and developers themselves, but in global terms, where archaeological practice is regulated, this is generally the responsibility of state sponsored bodies. In this volume the paper by Slack and Eastwood illustrates the role of the UK government through the Cultural Protection Fund in apportioning and regulating projects overseas. This is one aspect of the UK’s soft power programme. The term soft power, although familiar from the late 20th century, was most notably brought to prominence by Joseph Nye in his analysis of American influence during the Bush administration in 2004. Nye made the point that soft power, in contrast to hard or coercive power and economic power, formed the broad spectrum by which the strength of a state might be measured. Soft power depended upon a range of values and arose as a consequence of the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals and policies. It is a phenomenon built up over long periods of time. Wielding soft power, Nye argued, was also based on credibility, on clear, and often explanatory, communication developed through a set of simple themes designed in order to promote a central message. Soft power should not be dismissed as public relations to gain ephemeral popularity but as a specific means to achieve a desired end.

The role of archaeology in the service of the state, in relation to both soft and hard power, Luke and Kersel (2014) argue, is an aspect of cultural diplomacy. Exercised through academic missions and specific funding arrangements such as the Ambassador’s Fund, the US has recently deployed archaeology as a foil to the perception that the state was not interested in the care of cultural heritage following looting in Bagdad. A situation characterised by Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State for Defence’s infamous ‘stuff happens’ response to the destruction of Ottoman archives part of Iraq’s National Library and National Archives and looting of the National Museum in Bagdad in 2003 (Dyson 2009).

While the exercise of soft power in pursuit of state foreign policy may seem unrelated to the functioning of a professional organisation, the concept is important in understanding the agency of non-governmental organisations. As Nye pointed out in 2004, the reduced cost of communication which opened the field to small organisations with few core staff was part of the democratisation of technology. It nevertheless made states more porous to soft power and in particular Nye drew attention to the creation of virtual communities via the internet. His subject was diaspora, communities often geographically isolated but now linked by easy communication. For small institutions the internet provides a means to create similar communities of interest and through these, to exercise the soft power of persuasion and best practice (Nye 2004, 90–97, 129).

In assessing the strength of soft power and a state’s ‘attractiveness’ ranking, one of the criteria employed is the presence of heritage sites, in particular World Heritage Sites. Italy, for example, was cited by Wikipedia’s discussion of soft power, as a ‘world heritage superpower [that] has 51 WHS, is home to half the world art treasures, and an estimated 100,000 monuments of any sort (churches, cathedrals, archaeological sites, houses and statues)’ (Abbott 2006, 101). These are factors which make it particularly attractive and contributed to its ranking 13th of 30 in the Portland report for 2017 (McClory et al. 2017). In 2018 the UK was ranked No. 1 (McClory et al. 2018). The Portland report employs the concept of deploying ‘a clear and accurate measurement of a nation’s soft power resources’ and together with Nye’s earlier analysis indicates the range of potential benefits to accrue from the exercise of soft power. The facility to influence practice, to forge strategic institutional alliances and establish common forums, long the preserve of academic discourse, are now recognised as aspects of the soft power potential of professional bodies. Soft power is recognisably not simply a measure of influence but an ability to shape the preferences of others (Nye 2004, 5).

The exercise of soft power by heritage organisations has seen limited analysis. Luke and Karsel (2013) have argued convincingly that the long-term relationships established by archaeologists engaged in field projects, their role in negotiating local arrangements and with state bodies at a national level for permits and other regulatory instruments depends on the deployment of good will and almost incidentally the transmission of cultural norms outside the imposition of regulatory controls. The exercise of such soft power can be distinguished from formal statist diplomacy and may be seen as diplomacy with a small ‘d’ conducted between individuals with a common interest in the science of archaeology and heritage research. Exceptionally, Duedahl’s recent A History of UNESCO focused on an institution for which the exercise of authority has been pursued specifically through the deployment of soft power. Duedahl’s work is distinct from the cultural history of organisations whose principal objectives are the pursuit of heritage policy in the context of national governance, where the agency of individuals and organisations is measured in the implementation of national regulation. Reflecting on the role of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Duedahl noted that while historians have ‘uncovered the roots of many of the soft power initiatives launched to construct sincere solidarity between people … we still know little about their subsequent impact’ (Duedahl 2016, 4).

UNESCO’s remit in the aftermath of the Second World War was to ‘establish peace in the minds of men’ and Duedahl’s approach has been to identify the routes of its influence. Many of the mechanisms deployed by UNESCO are evidently beyond the funding and organisational capacity of CIfA, but in the deployment of knowledge transfer through support for expert missions, experimental centres or regional offices, lie common principles in the application of soft power and the creation of a global profession. For example, at Aswan in the 1950s and 1960s, the willingness of opinion formers such as Andre Malraux, French Minister of Culture, to promote the project was important in repackaging local heritage as a global concern. The results of the project included the revitalisation of archaeological study above the First Cataract. Increased media coverage for the area promoted a rise in visitor numbers and was instrumental in the creation of the Tutankhamun exhibition which toured internationally from 1961–1966. The project was later to serve as a model for conservation after the Venice and Florence floods in 1966, the restoration of Borobadur from 1970 to 1983 and was to unlock aid for a variety of projects in Carthage, Greece and Pakistan. UNESCO was able to consolidate its influence through a series of normalising, but voluntary treaties originating with the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (the Hague convention). In time its influence would create the 1972 World Heritage Convention, achieving near universal endorsement for a treaty which was internationalist in outlook and advocated global ownership of heritage.

In Britain the exercise of soft power by the UK government was described as a key element by Nichols in the preamble to the Archaeology and UK ‘soft power’ workshop at the Conference. UK soft power is formally geared towards promoting peace, prosperity and stability where ‘culture in all its dimensions is a fundamental component of sustainable development’ (UNESCO, 2010). For the UK government cultural heritage and the historic environment, particularly its study through archaeology, is seen as potentially a powerful medium in the exercise of soft power and the UK government’s interest in soft power can be used to facilitate archaeological investigation, conservation, training and capacity building programme. Cultural heritage seen in this form is considered by the government to enable local communities to investigate, record and pass on their heritage to future generations.

The workshop on Wednesday 19 April 2017 in Newcastle, set out to explore how development assistance characterised above by DCMS can help promote and influence local and international standards and build relationships with counterparties in other countries. It was an opportunity to address the support of government for the archaeological profession in the context of foreign policy. For both government and the Institute, projects in the developing world can make significant contributions to the development and enforcement of local heritage protection systems and field methods. In the long term it is recognised by both parties that engagement with stakeholders is essential to develop good governance systems, demonstrate transparency and accountability while building the capacity of local institutions.

However, balancing this overarching perspective with specific project objectives is often difficult to achieve and may be contested at local and government levels. Nevertheless, individual projects can offer small-scale opportunities to raise expectations, facilitate the work of heritage agencies and the aspirations of local communities. For many professionals working overseas, the need to engage with and understand intangible, political, ethical and spiritual aspects of the local environment forms an essential part of project implementation.

For many archaeologists and heritage professionals, work in the field of cultural heritage is directly related to economic development whether through project specific development proposals, heritage led regeneration, or in the context of damage or destruction, through natural or human agency. The workshop in Newcastle was an opportunity to engage with conference attendees to address the potential for greater co-ordination and effective working in the context of a global profession. (Hinton and O’Brien 2016).

Pathways of influence

The output of archaeological investigation is the result of research, and within research communities there has been an increasing awareness that getting research into policy is not only a technical matter of knowledge translation and exchange, but also a political challenge. While archaeological analysis has long focused on the theoretical basis of interpretation (Hodder 2002; Trigger 2007) and the nature of political systems, the role of institutional structures and the political contestation of policy issues has only recently been the subject of analysis. In particular, CIfA has engaged with this branch of scholarship through sponsorship of the journal Historic Environment Policy and Practice. The journal, through its subscription list, availability to CIfA members and, in particular, international circulation to university libraries by the publisher Taylor and Francis (Routledge), has encouraged the global reach of the UK profession. It has provided a forum for debate and in the nine years since its inception the journal has published research from territories as geographically and politically disparate as Iran and Kenya, Mexico and Romania, Turkey and Sweden. Through publication it is becoming clear how the political nature of an issue, whether morally contested or impinging on powerful economic interests, might be facilitated or constrained by particular state structures or institutional bureaucratic arrangements (Karl 2018; Rohar 2018). In 2019 the journal will publish papers on engaging with policy from the Heritage Research and Rescue Conference, London Engaging with Policy in the UK: Responding to Changes in Planning, Heritage and the Arts,