16th February 2014, 03:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 16th February 2014, 03:34 PM by Tool.)
I'm going to add some more, mainly because I don't want to go shopping...
Much of my cynicism comes from many years in an industry rife with institutes, accredited this, that and the other, and more schemes 'guaranteeing' quality than you can shake your trowel at. And in return we have a building industry that largely produces buildings of zero architectural merit (and fail to meet their CDM regulation obligations to boot) - good job there's a Royal Institute overseeing that then, isn't it! - and built to a standard that is frankly disgusting. So forgive me if I struggle to agree that having an institute, chartered or otherwise, is the panacea to the ills in archaeology. They have to prove themselves to me, rather than me feeling obliged to prove myself to them. Maybe that's the problem with allowing us outsiders into this tiny world of archaeology - we've seen it all before.
Much of my cynicism comes from many years in an industry rife with institutes, accredited this, that and the other, and more schemes 'guaranteeing' quality than you can shake your trowel at. And in return we have a building industry that largely produces buildings of zero architectural merit (and fail to meet their CDM regulation obligations to boot) - good job there's a Royal Institute overseeing that then, isn't it! - and built to a standard that is frankly disgusting. So forgive me if I struggle to agree that having an institute, chartered or otherwise, is the panacea to the ills in archaeology. They have to prove themselves to me, rather than me feeling obliged to prove myself to them. Maybe that's the problem with allowing us outsiders into this tiny world of archaeology - we've seen it all before.