20th September 2012, 08:59 AM
Sith Wrote:[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/align]
Conveniently lifted from the IfA monthly e-bulletin issued this morning.
I think those figures say everything there is to say about the IfA (although before I start I should say I am a member and do believe it has an important role to play, I'm just not sure whether chartered status isn't a bit of a red herring). Over 50% of the corporate membership are MiFAs! I'm guessing that in actual employment terms considerably less than 50% of the archaeologists out there are managers. In what way can it possibly represent all archaeologists. Of course it can't - how many of that 50% have been in the IfA for over 20 years? Do they really want to see anything change that will allow those below them to climb the greasy pole? What is the distribution of members (at all levels) working in commercial archaeology, compared to say, universities or museums or acting as curators? The IfA cannot reasonably represent all of those diverse roles, certainly not on issues of employment and career structure, which is one of the main sources of complaint on this forum. We would be better off with a separate organisation that dealt with the large number of archaeologists working in commercial archaeology who are at present either not members or not represented in any way rather than worrying about chartered status.