DRGT 2011 - DRGT2011 First Workshop on Documenting and Researching Gravesites in Taiwan

DRGT2011
First Workshop on Documenting and Researching Gravesites in Taiwan
Gravesites in Taiwan, Keys to the Past, Endangered in the Future
Organized jointly by Taipei Medical University and National University of Kaohsiung
Conference Description

For thousands of years, gravesites, tombs and tombstones stand at the center of human communities, e.g. as a source for the formation of social identities, social hierarchies and myths of origin, or as a place to connect to the ancestors, the otherworld and the cosmos. In Taiwan, tombs stand also as a witness for the turbulent history and the reflection the history had on the social practices, changing identities and social, political and economic developments. Ironically, some of the latter developments have led to the removal of gravesites in Taiwan.

Historical gravesites are transformed, frequently without obvious necessity, into managed graveyards or public parks, forcing people to relocate the remains of their ancestors into modern bone-ash-towers. Urban development projects, transportation construction projects and water management construction projects join speculations on ground price and the yield of bone-ash-towers into the mantra of graveyard-clearance.

In face of the upheaval and the threat to lose a substantial part of Taiwan's cultural heritage, a workshop is organized with the aims to know about and understand better

the persons, organizations and institutions working in different frameworks on the topic of gravesites, tombs and tombstones in Taiwan,
the potentials of collaborations on the documentation of or research on Taiwan's gravesites,
the degree to which Taiwan's gravesites are endangered and the forces behind this development,
the relevance to maintain gravesites or at least to document them for social or scientific purposes,
research on gravesites that has been done in the past in various branches of social sciences,
potential collaboration between academia and local administration,
how other countries or regions which face similar developments try to cope with them,
technical equipments for and/or scientific approaches to the documentation of gravesites,
ways to exchange data on gravesites with their technical, legal and scientific implications.
We invite abstracts of about 500 words to be submitted before February 28th 2011 to
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=drgt20....