Event Details

Gerry Wait has over 30 years of experience as an archaeologist and heritage consultant. His real passion is in finding ways to make the past relevant to people and communities in building their future, with the belief that successful communities have firm roots in their past. Gerry is an expert in conservation and management planning, and has led Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs) or IESC due diligence in the UK, USA, Romania, Ireland, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Burkino Faso, Niger, the Mauretania, Republic of Congo, Mongolia, Morocco, and Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkey, and Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Uganda and Tanzania.

Gerry served as Chairman of the UK’s Institute for Archaeologists and a number of terms on the Board of CIfA, and is Co-Chair of the Committee on Professional Associations in Archaeology of the European Association of Archaeologists. Gerry has a B.A. in Anthropology, a M.A. in Anthropology and Archaeology, and a PhD in European Archaeology from the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the International Association for Impact Assessment, and of many other professional and academic associations.

International Cultural Heritage Management (ICHM), like heritage management in any context, can seem romantic and simultaneously like a great deal of work. Above all, it can be immensely rewarding. This two-hour course will provide participants with an introduction to the ways in which ICHM is like and unlike domestic Cultural Heritage Management work in other contexts. The seminar will discuss ethics and standards and team-work/collaboration in cross-cultural contexts. Outputs, capacity building, and sectoral development will also be discussed. Participants will learn about available resources for finding best practices and sources for support and guidance and be pointed to the existence and use of standards and publications.

Participants will be better able to assemble and lead teams or contribute as team members by:

1. Learning how to work through ethical concerns arising from working internationally in different cultural contexts;
2. Identifying the basic issues of international team management – cultural differences, time keeping, team roles and management, and styles of communication;
3. Connecting the relationships between standards of performance, outputs (project, commercial and academic) and capacity building; and
4. Learning how to find resources and support/guidance.