ABSTRACT
In this first chapter of the book, we set out the theoretical and practical considerations of doing public archaeology with a community in Greece. We aim to establish that community-oriented practice cannot follow blueprints common for every place around the world but needs to be established on a self-reflexive framework, attuned to the needs and desires of particular communities of people. We examine the status of and expectations from community engagement especially in academic institutions and projects, and outline our response in practice, which is to setup ethnographically informed collaborative research projects, with the communities we are working with. In the final half of the chapter, we provide more contextual details for the reader: We lay out in broad strokes the state of heritage processes in Greece and Crete in particular, especially related to the tourism industry, and discuss the potentials and limitations of establishing collaborative projects, especially in view of the controls imposed by the state on archaeological heritage.
