The Defence Geographic Centre and Cranfield Defence and Security will be holding this joint Symposium combining the 11th International Spatial Socio-Cultural Knowledge Workshop (SSKW), Culture in Conflict Conference, Cultural Heritage Protection, and wider cultural issues.

The ‘Realising the Cultural and Human Dimension Symposium’ will gather UK, US and other international experts and practitioners from defence, academia, OGDs and NGOs to seek understanding of contemporary issues involving cultures through application of spatial and temporal social science analysis tools and methods.

Themes:

The themes of the Symposium will include:

  •     Human Geography for Defence and Humanitarian Engagement activities.
  •     Regional analysis: Russia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.
  •     Migration and the New Diasporas – emerging effects on transit countries and the new settlements.
  •     People and the Environment (Cultural issues relating to Health, Climate and Demographics)
  •     Protection of Cultural Heritage.

The objectives of the symposium are to consider:

 

  •     Promoting a shared situational awareness of people and their environment. The collection, organisation and sharing of knowledge, ideas, data, models and analytical outputs that will help develop our understanding of Human Geography and its associated cultural factors for informing a range of engagement activities.
  •     The development of tradecraft, best practices and case studies in order to promote enhanced research practice, to stimulate capability development and to further understanding.
  •     The nature of cultural information, how it is identified, acquired and how can it be retrieved.
  •     The protection of cultural heritage in all its many forms. These topics will be addressed through a combination of plenary speakers and breakout sessions. The breakout sessions provide opportunities for facilitated discussion that will be focused on specific questions dealing with the Symposium’s topics through regional, organisational, technical, functional, and practical considerations.

Call for papers:

Short abstracts (of up to 250 words) and poster proposals based on the topics above, or on a topic that you consider is also relevant to the overall theme are invited by 09th February 2018.  Please submit to Leanne in Microsoft word format. Papers should be planned to take 20 minutes to present, followed by 10 minutes for questions.

Displays, Demonstrations and Sponsorship:

We offer companies, departments and establishments an opportunity to display their equipment or advertise their capability within the Conference facility throughout the Symposium. There are also unique opportunities for sponsoring this event.