Stanford scholar uses digital tools to track grave relocation in China
A digital humanities project led by Stanford historian Tom Mullaney is creating a map that illustrates the ongoing and multifaceted impact of funeral reform and grave relocation in China.
BY TOM WINTERBOTTOM
In the last 15 years, grave relocation has been taking place in China on a massive scale. To date, some 15 million deceased people's remains have been moved.
A digital humanities project at Stanford reveals the extent and human impact of this huge yet largely unreported phenomenon.
Led by Stanford historian Tom Mullaney, the Grave Reform in Modern China project harnesses humanities scholarship and data visualization to highlight the process according to two principal focal points.
The first is to use a digital platform to visualize a complex process that, without these tools, it would be difficult to see. The second is to tell the story of that process coherently and accessibly.
"We are making visible both the human level of grave relocation through stories alongside the details concerning when, where and why it is taking place, in order to understand it on a macro level," said Mullaney, an associate professor of history.
Uniquely, the project creates a complex, nuanced and layered digital map of China that mixes the growing living population with the dead....
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The Grave Reform in Modern China project is creating a digital map that shows the impact of grave relocation and how it reflects the process of development.