26th EAA Virtual Annual Meeting, 24-30 August 2020

Virtual Networking!

by Felipe Criado-Boado (EAA President)

Bridges, townscapes, relativity, networking … Whenever we invite you to attend our Annual Meetings, the usual way to do this is to rely on the sense of place of the city where we meet. This touch was ‘bridges’ in Maastricht 2017, ‘townscapes’ in Barcelona 2018, ‘relativity’ in Bern 2019, and it was to be ‘networking’ for Budapest 2020 referring to the Pannonian Basin as a hub.

What is the sense of place in a non-place? Which is the sense of place in a digital space, a virtual encounter? It is the people, the participants actively engaged as co-producers, the distinct individuals de-individualized in their meta-subjective avatars. It is a sense built up from whatever we bring as individuals: our knowledge, our wishes, and the package of our tradition as the European Association of Archaeologists. A tradition that calls us to meet and encounter. Once again, in spite of the current problems or exactly because of them, the EAA membership will use the strong spirit of our Association to find a suitable alternative to keep meeting, discussing and envisaging how to reinvent normality. We will create networking! When problems are huge – and they are for many of our colleagues and societies – archaeology, archaeologists and EAA must be part of our struggle for the future.