6th October 2010, 09:40 AM
Grumblestiltskin Wrote:I am a trained surveyor, illustrator and field archaeologist but specialise in none of these areas and practice all of them occasionally. To me personally my IfA grade is useful only in terms of salary, as it represents a fledgling attempt to up the standards across the board. It is really only useful in this regard for fieldworkers, where quality control is otherwise often missing and inexperienced people are often sent into the field at minimum wage or near enough in place of an expensive and competent fieldwork specialist. Even in this one essential regard it is already failing, as even ROs are now refusing to abide by IfA rates.
Illustrators and surveyors don't really need to be in the IfA for any other reason as their skills speak for themselves, it is much more obvious to clients and councils (and project managers looking at their profits) when skills are lacking. However by merging the two organisations it undermines the status of MIfA and PIfA even further because it is even more unlikely that commercial units will be willing to pay an illustrator who has been working in commercial archaeology for a couple of years the recommended MIfA rate.
Not that all illustrators are in junior positions by any means but it is possible to graduate with a very good set of skills and the ability to produce work of the standard shown in that video a few pages back without years of experience as long as you have a bit of talent. Younger illustrators are even at an advantage in many cases having been weaned on Illustrator and 3D modelling software. For a fieldworker the opposite is true, field experience takes even talented folk several years of field experience to get to what most would consider the competence to run a medium to large complex site.
My point is that by expanding the remit of the IfA specialists will be pleased in the short term and no better off in the long term as the IfA dissolves into an amorphous group of managers, scientists, academics, enthusiastic amateurs and lastly and leastly fieldworkers. It will have no ability to even suggest wages or enfore fieldwork standards. It will mean nothing to prospective employers and clients where you are a MIfa, a Milf or a MoFO.
Maybe it is already too late and fieldworkers should think about a new breakaway grouping... maybe the Institute of Field Archaeologists? Has a certain ring to it...
How right you are. It is vital that clients and similar are able to have confidence and rely on accreditation. This is a two way process, the client is assured that the person is competent for the task and the person accredited may expect preference over those not accredited. Also to be meaningful it must be clear to others what level of expertise, experience and range of ability is being accredited. Unless this is how it works, accreditation is pointless. It has been argued that the way MIFA is being used it not achieving this. At recent IFA conferences it has been suggested that there should be some form of Super MIFA being a person who complies with the original objective and or that there should be categories of MIFA. This is seeming to indicate that MAAIS could be a more valuable and relevant accreditation, if promoted as such, this would seem to be a powerful argument for not merging.