Building Community Archaeology Practice and Heritage Tourism for Sustainable Development in a Post-Conflict Zone. The ACT and ALIPH Projects in the Swat Valley (Pakistan)

The article presents the results of the Italian Archaeological Mission's major archaeological work in Pakistan between 2011 and 2024. These works, which feature an innovative approach aimed at the training of local expertises and the long-term sustainability of the results, also concern the use of materials and a technical philosophy that privileges the local element, also in order to increase community involvement. This approach, already defined as ‘archaeology from below’ is in this work presented as ‘fourth mission’. Whilst the volume covers theoretical issues, it primarily offers insight into how both small and large projects within low- and middle-income countries start, plan and develop. It describes what factors lead some projects to succeed, some to fail and most to have elements of both. Core to this investigation, each specifically commissioned chapter considers the challenges of developing collaboration and joint ownership between multiple stakeholders, ranging from local communities to national governments. In addition, the book considers how the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic were managed, with lessons for future events of such magnitude. In summary, this significant volume recognises the value of developing collaborative partnerships between academics, NGOs and local communities, to achieve community engagement within archaeological research and support sustainable development by developing appropriate forms of tourism at archaeological sites. It provides essential reading for those interested in tourism, heritage studies, archaeology, geography, tourism studies and cultural studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.