NEARCHing Factory in Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

The NEARCHing Factory (30 January - 1 February 2017), an event-meeting on archaeology, was out of the ordinary for two reasons: because of the proposed work themes, which offered the opportunity to tackle head-on the relative epistemological crisis in which the discipline of archaeology has found itself over the last decade or so; and because of a meeting between professionals from very heterogeneous backgrounds (art, anthropology, archaeology) operating in an inclusive and participatory mode. Ellinor Dunning took part in this original meeting through her presentation in the Participative Heritage Management session, organised by Hayley Roberts (Bournemouth University). Her talk focused on the limits of participation in the case of Switzerland, where the very functioning of the valorisation and management of archaeology is based on amateur associations.