Call for Papers

Visualising significance: Mapping as common denominator

6th International Conference on Heritage Conservation and Site Management

Berlin and Cottbus, 5 and 6 December 2018

The conservation and management of cultural heritage unifies various academic disciplines, such as Building History, Conservation, Urban Planning, Natural Sciences, Sociology, Anthropology, History, Cultural Management, and Tourism. Many of these employ their field-specific approach to research and its implementation. Although each of these disciplines play a significant role in heritage preservation, there is a lack of awareness for the methods of neighbouring disciplines.

What, however, many of these academic fields employ is mapping. It is a tool to document, organise, analyse and assess data. Some of these maps are merely a method to process information, in other cases maps constitute the basis for further work of neighbouring disciplines. It can be a very basic working method, which has not changed (much) over the course of time. In the case of the discipline of history, mapping has been “re-discovered”, where mapping offers unique possibilities and insights to unveil spatial relationships. Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact how maps have been designed for political purposes: choice of information, or the setting of specific standards.

Participants of different field are asked to present challenges and ideally also solutions they have encountered when employing maps on or off site, of tangible or intangible heritage, and ideally also their solutions. To foster inter- and transdisciplinary work and research the conference is conceived to not only raise awareness but to also inspire researchers to develop innovative approaches in mapping like in Visual Arts. In addition, mapping should be understood as a tool for creating narratives, to engage stakeholders and tourists to enjoy and participate in the conservation and management of heritage.

The conference will offer a platform for the different disciplines, each of them dealing with mapping which acts as common denominator. The conference participants are invited to present their research where mapping played if not a central, but at least a considerable role to help discover unusual phenomena that necessitated interdisciplinary work, perhaps even by discovering promising interfaces between the various disciplines. Foremost the kind of research and projects will be welcome where maps could and can provoke a change of perspective and enable dialogue in dealing with cultural heritage. 

Proposals for talks (15 minutes) and posters are invited – please provide an abstract of 300 words.
The deadline for paper abstracts is 1 October 2018, the deadline for poster abstracts is 1 November 2018.

Please send your abstract to: cultural-heritage-centre(at)b-tu.de

Important deadlines:

15 October 2018: Authors will be notified by scientific committee if paper has been accepted.
21 October 2018: Authors of papers are kindly asked to confirm their participation at the conference.
5 November 2018: Authors will be notified by scientific committee if poster has been accepted.
21 November 2018: Authors of posters are kindly asked to confirm their participation at the conference.
23 November 2018: Deadline for final poster texts.
31 March 2019: Final full paper submission.

 

All accepted papers and posters will be published in the conference proceedings.

We kindly ask you to observe the information for full papers and poster templates.