BANEA
The British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology
Since 1986 BANEA has gathered together researchers, students, educators, and museum professionals based in the United Kingdom who work on the archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia. Due to its area of interest and the history of archaeological work in this region, and the institutions from which BANEA gathers its membership, the Steering Committee recognises a pressing need to re-examine its position and priorities in light of the society-wide effort to decolonise perceptions, practices and representation.
BANEA acknowledges the historical contexts of the subject within a broadly colonial setting, and aims to formulate strategies to address this context in a meaningful and productive way, in collaboration with members and institutions, and to become itself more representative across various areas of activity, output, and engagement.The Steering Committee wishes to embark on this process in a deliberate and equitable manner, and so have set up a provisional subcommittee, with an external advisory group to provide objectivity, to begin to formulate a strategy to this end. We recognise that this is an ongoing task, which will evolve over some period of time.
BANEA Decolonising Committee
Current activities and ongoing projects
Consulting with the external advisory committee
We are currently consulting with the external advisory committee to to re-examine BANEA's position and priorities in light of the society-wide effort to decolonise perceptions, practices and representation in archaeology. Our external advisory group is composed of:
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Project Researcher for UCL Institute of Archaeology AHRC funded Egypt's Dispersed Heritage Project, ( heba.abdelgawad@ucl.ac.uk)
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Twitter: @GawadHeba @ExcavatedEgypt
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EgyptsDispersedHeritage
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Faculty of Archaeology at the University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq
Dr. Rozhen Kamal Mohammed-Amin
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Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH) Research Centre at the Sulaimani Polytechnic University, Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Projects on Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity
Among our most recent projects, our membership-wide survey on decolonisation, and workshop on Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity come the first. In the last quarter of 2021, we circulated a survey to the BANEA membership to gain a better understanding of the membership’s understanding of decolonisation issues, and the views of the membership on how we might move forward with our decolonising agenda. The workshop followed this survey in November and provided a space to discuss how to make BANEA a more inclusive, diverse, and equitable organisation, but also informed the committee about how to decolonise BANEA’s practices and events, including the annual conference. We will be presenting the results of these efforts in the upcoming BANEA 2022 conference.
Meet the Team
Ava Clark
Advisory group member
PEF
Kristen Hopper
Chair of Advisory group
Durham University
Elifgül Doğan
Advisory group member
University Cambridge
Glynnis Maynard
Implementation group member
University Cambridge
Roger Matthews
Advisory group member
University of Reading
Ailbhe Nic Thoirealaigh
Implementation group member
University of Glasgow
Christoph Bachhuber
Advisory group member
University of Oxford
Latif Öksüz
Implementation group member
Durham University