JASA – paving the road to cultural heritage (original) (raw)

2016, World anthropologies and privatization of knowledge: engaging anthropology in public / Hotel Dubrovnik Palace / Dubrovnik, Croatia

Archaeological research includes the influx of experts into a community, inevitably leading to new relations. In 2014 and 2015, a similar situation occurred in Baranja, where archaeologists worked on the A5 motorway, discovering new and reviving old data on the region’s cultural heritage. The aim is to present an example of how archaeologists employed by the Archaeological museum in Zagreb helped reanimate culture with the help of local stakeholders. We will focus on the many months of work conducted by about 40 locals and about 20 archaeologists, and the impact the latter made on the local community by raising awareness on the area’s rich cultural heritage, along with financial benefits experienced by everyone included in this complex process. Seeing as this is not one-sided, we will show how the archaeologists blended into the local community by supporting the local cultural scene, and by participating in public events such as bean cooking contests. The newly-created bonds resulted in a project conducted by both archaeologists and local stakeholders - the first archaeological exhibition ever held in Beli Manastir, a concise cross-section of the knowledge procured in the excavations held at Jauhov salaš in Novi Čeminac. Finally, if experts take time to raise awareness about cultural heritage in the local community, cultural tourism can be reanimated, or even created, to the mutual benefit of experts in the field and local stakeholders, thereby creating conditions for promoting and presenting research to the public, as well as for presenting the local heritage to archaeologists.