Combining New Awareness and Public Support for Archaeology with In Situ Preservation of an Archaeological Monument

Preserving archaeological remains in situ is one of the main objectives of the Valletta Treaty, which was signed by the Dutch government in 1992. Subsequently, preservation in situ has become one of the pillars of archaeological heritage management in the Netherlands. Another objective of the Treaty is the promotion of heritage education and raising of public awareness for the protection and investigation of archaeological heritage. Until recently, this goal has received too little attention. The design and building of an underground visitor centre, DOMunder, raised an important question: How can we transform an archaeological monument into an asset for the community and at the same time ensure long-lasting preservation? Not many parallels exist, as most archaeological sites in urban environments are seen as a burden for development. Sites are generally either excavated or left in situ; in both cases the archaeology remains invisible and inaccessible to the public. In the case of DOMunder, the location in a wet sedimentary environment provided even more challenges. This paper focuses on a few of the many questions and problems that were raised before and during the building process and the (preliminary) answers and solutions.     

The Commission Knocked Out Cold: Laura Serrano and the End of the Mexico City Prohibition of Women's Boxing in the 1990s

This article examines the conflict over the legalisation of women's boxing in Mexico City in the 1990s. In 1995, Laura Serrano's Women's International Boxing Federation world boxing title put pressure on the legal system that had banned women from professional boxing in the Mexican capital since 1946. As the visibility of women's boxing grew in Mexico, Serrano publicly fought to end the ban in her home city. The Mexico City Boxing Commission's moral arguments and medical discourses about the female body became increasingly untenable as politics of gender equality won in importance. Using a range of sources, including Mexican newspapers and magazines, government gazettes, congress proceedings, and an autobiographical text by Serrano, this article illustrates the interplay of gender ideologies and institutional structures during an important period in Mexican political history. After seven decades of uninterrupted Institutional Revolutionary Party rule, power of the Mexican capital shifted to the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) when Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas became the city's first elected governor in 1997. Although the PRD politically claimed the end of the prohibition in 1998, the shift in power cost Serrano the best paid boxing event of her career. It took another legal reform that outlawed discrimination in sports to force the Commission to finally regulate women's boxing in 1999.