Cooperation, Co-funding, and Confusion: EU Funding for Bulgarian Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the post-Brexit era, the impact of EU policies and funding on archaeological and cultural heritage projects has come under renewed scrutiny by those in both the public and private sectors. Academic and commercial institutions alike are now questioning the influence that membership in the EU, and its corresponding funding, has on the ways in which archaeology and heritage are practiced in member states. Using ethnographic data gathered in Bulgaria and at the EU headquarters in Brussels, this paper examines the relationship between EU funding and Bulgarian archaeological practice. Bulgaria is a suitable case study for assessing EU heritage practices because it recently marked ten years of membership in the Union, and therefore sufficient time has passed for funding to impact practice. Specifically, this paper focuses on Bulgarian archaeologists’ participation, or lack thereof, in EU-funded archaeological and heritage programs. I demonstrate that while there is a mutual entanglement between the EU and Bulgarian heritage practitioners, there is also considerable friction in how they interact with each other.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23307