Ethics of commercial archaeology: Australia

[Extract] Having recently returned to full-time employment in commercial archaeology after a period of seven years in academia, the ethics of commercial archaeology is a subject at the forefront of my mind. A lot has been written about the ethical issues involved in indigenous heritage especially the scenario where non-indigenous practitioners and regulators are making decisions regarding the heritage of indigenous people (e.g., Langford 1983; Byrne 1993, 1996; Smith 2004). The ethical dilemmas are obvious in that context; however, while this entry touches on this area, it focusses more broadly on a range of ethical issues including those relevant to the often less-critiqued area of non-indigenous heritage also referred to as historical heritage or the heritage of settler societies. In such fields the archaeologist is often of the same cultural (or a derivative) background as the people who created the heritage. They therefore have a privileged role in studying the cultural remains as insiders, but to some extent since archaeologists are dealing with the heritage of past societies, are we not always at a fundamental level "outsiders"? This entry adopts a consciously provocative stance in highlighting many of the issues that face those working in commercial archaeology in Australia; while doing this I acknowledge that there are archaeologists in Australia who are conscious of many if not all of the issues raised and who attempt to address these in their daily practice, and I also acknowledge that we are all to a greater or lesser extent constrained by the economic and regulatory framework in which the industry operates