Shifting sands

: Understanding volunteer engagement and legacy of community archaeology projects in coastal East Kent

Abstract

Many historic sites within the UK are situated within the coastal landscape, which are increasingly affected and shaped by anthropogenic climate change. In response, there has been consideration in the literature and a recent expansion in community archaeology projects aimed at capturing historical information on the coast before it is lost. Recent academic attention has turned towards evaluating these projects. However, current strategies can fail to capture the range of impacts and legacies of the work being carried out in these unique and dynamic environments. This thesis builds upon existing works that explore project evaluation and participant experience within community archaeology. It proposes a flexible evaluation approach which can be used to compare different case studies against one another. It also opens a dialogue surrounding ‘legacy’ and how the field can begin to unpick and critically examine what this means, why it is important for future work, and how it can be most effectively captured. This is achieved through a qualitative methodology, utilising semi-structured interviews and participant observations, framed within a theory of change model to capture the range of inputs, outputs, impacts, and perceptions of legacies of three case studies in coastal East Kent. All are short to mid-term and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund: (Don’t Let It) Slip through the Net, a Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network programme at Sandwich Bay; Wanstone Rediscovered located on the White Cliffs at Dover, managed by The National Trust; and an excavation at East Wear Bay in Folkestone, run by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust. Considering the activities and outputs of these three broadly comparable but distinctive projects, combined with interviews with volunteers and observations of the activities, the impacts and legacies of community archaeology on the coast are diverse. While archaeological enquiry highlights the historical implications of such projects, this qualitative approach allowed for the consideration of other, more nuanced, aspects to come forward, including those related to the volunteers, the wider community and place, and the natural environment. By examining volunteer perceptions and engagement in these Kentish coastal archaeological projects, this research provides comprehensive recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of heritage management practice, and project legacy more broadly, in dynamic coastal environments. This thesis advances the use of a flexible evaluation methodology that enables the comparison of community archaeology projects. This rises to the call for evaluation, which allows comparison across case studies while retaining the adaptability needed in dynamic, diverse coastal contexts.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Canterbury Christ Church University