Call for Papers: The Everyday Heritage and Afterlives of Asylum Burial Grounds

Online workshop, Tuesday 27 October 2026 (ZOOM), Workshop Convenors: Alana Harris (King’s College London) and

Julie Rugg (University of York and Director of the Cemetery Research Group)

This one-day, online workshop seeks to bring together scholars and community historians, policy makers and heritage activists who are committed to the reconceptualisation of asylum burial grounds, memorialisation activism, and historical analysis of their afterlives.

We welcome academic papers and short communications around the following themes: 

• the history of particular asylum burial grounds and memorialisation strategies;

• methodological innovations in life history, family history, and genealogical research developed through research on asylum thanatology;

• challenges to ‘authorised heritage discourses’ by consideration of asylum burial grounds, including broadened historical listing and inclusion narratives, with implications for local and national heritage policy and activism; and

• debates about the maintenance of disused cemeteries, and their reuse or development, following the Law Reform Commission’s Burial and Cremation: Final Report (March 2026).

Proposals for 20-minute papers (consisting of a title, 300-word abstract and 50-word author biography) should be forwarded to alana.harris@kcl.ac.uk by 19 June 2026.

Accepted speakers will be notified by 3 July 2026.