Cultural Heritage under Construction: Exploring Stakeholder Perceptions of Preventive Archaeology in Romania

Abstract

For over two decades, Romania’s fast-growing construction industry made an impact on infrastructure, landscape, and urban areas, contributing to an increase in preventive archeology research activities. The current study aims to explore public perceptions of both archaeology and preventive archeology. It was conducted online, on a convenience sample comprising both professionals within the domain of archeology and heritage safeguarding and research, as well as non-professionals. Its main aim is to shed light on the current situation, given the fact that public perceptions change over time and niche topics such as preventive archaeology pose a specific set of challenges when they have to be publicly addressed by various stakeholders.

Keywords

• public perception
• archeology
• preventive archeology