WORKING
GROUP ON REPRESENTATION (1)
Claire Smith
WAC is establishing a working
group on representation on the Council and
Executive. The notion of establishing working
groups on topics of particular importance
was mooted at WAC-4 during the Executive
meeting on Sunday, 9 January 1999. Several
ideas for working groups were discussed,
including the idea of a working group on
representation. Clearly, it is important
that WAC achieve broad and effective representation
on the Council and Executive. As it stands
there are a number of issues that need to
be addressed. These include:
- Some regional representatives are not
able to attend Congresses or Inter-Congresses.
This means that their particular region
is either under-represented or not represented.
This raises questions relating to the
funding of representatives to attend Congresses
as well as the commitment of these Executive
members to actually representing the people
of their region. The system of proxies
works - but on what basis are people chosen
to act proxies? There is a need to work
through some principles here.
- Some regional representatives are totally
inactive during their period of election.
This raises the question of whether regional
representatives should be asked to show
some evidence of their activity in the
region prior to standing for re-election.
- Some Indigenous representatives on the
Council are not able to attend Congresses
or Inter-Congresses. This raises the issue
of whether special funding should be sought
to support the attendance of these representatives.
- The procedures implementing the election
of country representatives to Council
are not very clear. Election occurs during
Congresses but there is no procedure which
is applied consistently. In some cases
this has meant that a country is not represented,
even though it does have a representative
from that country at the Congress. There
may be a case for developing a mechanism
to ensure that representatives to Council
are duly elected to Council by other members
in the country or region before they attend
a meeting.
- People from countries outside the UK,
Australia, US and Western Europe have
very low representation at Congresses.
This needs to be addressed. Ideas which
have been mooted include seeking targeted
funding in a more coordinated fashion
and the establishment of a series of regional
meetings.
The WAC Executive is establishing
a working group to discuss these and related
matters. The aim of the working group is
to develop practical strategies for dealing
with these issues. Input and feedback is
being sought from the wider membership of
WAC through WAC Bulletin. The working
group will prepare a report to be tabled
for discussion at the next meeting of the
Executive. Members are invited to provide
input, or to offer to serve on the working
group.
The working group will
operate through email and fax. Members who
wish to join this working group are invited
to contact me at:
Dr Claire Smith
Flinders University
Adelaide 5000
South Australia
Email: claire.smith@flinders.edu.au
Fax: 61 (0) 8 8278 1934
Footnotes:
1) This report incorporates
suggestions put forward by Executive members
Fekri Hassan, Lesley Sutty, Ken Issacson
and Peter Stone |
World
Archaeological Bulletin