Fandom and The Archers audio book Chapter 5, Carenza Lewis

Gauging guerrilla engagement: the unexpected benefits of the Academic Archers conference

Carenza Lewis

Is Academic Archers the best-ever Zoom conference? Attendees in 2021 seemed to think so. Marking the half-decade anniversary of Academic Archers, this chapter explores the benefits of the attending Academic Archers conference, using data from conference feedback in 2017 and 2021 and methods from current research into wellbeing in heritage contexts. The analysis shows this unique conference to attract more than 75% of its attendees from outside academia, who adore learning about new research ranging from forensics to musicology - even more than… talking about The Archers. But it is the written-in comments on feedback forms which have proven particularly valuable in revealing why this is the case, showing the unexpected ways in which taking part in the conference is associated with mental wellbeing. 

Carenza Lewis MA ScD FSA FHEA FRSA is an archaeologist and Professor of Public Understanding of Research at the University of Lincoln. Her research includes historic rural settlements, childhood, community heritage and wellbeing. She has directed archaeological fieldwork on scores of sites, mostly medieval, presented a number of TV programmes including 12 series of Channel 4’s iconic Time Team and taught medieval archaeology. Since moving to Lincoln in 2015, she has led Middlefield’s Utopias (2016-17), Heritage at Risk and Wellbeing (2020-21) and Community Archaeology in Rural Environments (2019-23), the latter extending her publicly engaged approach to archaeological research into the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Poland. She is currently President of the Medieval Settlement Research Group and Vice Chair of Trustees for the Council for British Archaeology and mother to three almost grown-up children who do not want to go into archaeology.