On encountering corpses: political, socio-economic and cultural aspects of contemporary encounters with dead bodies.

在一系列社会文化、社会经济、政治、医疗和情感背景下，与尸体的接触变得越来越普遍。然而，公众对这些遭遇的了解和学术研究是有限的，而且不是很连贯。不断变化的社会态度、新技术、移民和多元文化、医疗需求以及与尸体有关的经济机会都在迅速变化。移民社区带来了不同的要求，要求在空间方面连接到仪式和做法的身体处置在英国（如。墓地是如何组织的，如何适应不同的埋葬方式？）。关于尸体的社会趋势也在发生变化。例如，在埋葬前查看尸体方面存在很大的阶级差异。尸体处理的替代选择也越来越受欢迎，例如处理葬礼骨灰的不同方式或选择“绿色”葬礼的形式。艺术实践的形式（如。“人体世界”塑化人类遗骸展览），考古学（例如，理查德三世的遗体），流行文化（如。电视罪案鉴证系列）及旅游产品（如“黑暗旅游”）和媒体的报道使人类遗骸在日常生活中更加明显。为医学研究捐赠尸体和全球死后身体部位贸易，加上使这些成为可能的技术的发展，也使尸体在当代社会遭遇中发挥作用，这些遭遇提出了关于生物医学材料的监管和管理以及死者亲属经验的重要问题。这一系列会议将因此汇集广泛的研究人员和从业人员目的是增加对这些与管理、处置和展示尸体有关的不断变化的社会趋势的理解。在每个研讨会上，参与管理人类遗骸的一系列国际学者和专业人士将讨论与死者有关的当今社会，文化，道德和技术问题。讨论将涵盖广泛的背景，从葬礼到旅游，捐赠尸体用于医学研究，到身体部位的经济贸易，适应“绿色”和基于信仰的埋葬要求，理解扰乱人类遗骸的道德规范（例如，在主要的基础设施项目，如伦敦横贯铁路或高速铁路2），以使用尸体的政治政权。研讨会还将为在这些情况下遇到死者的各种专业人员和公众提供信息。一个关键的成果是提高对这些情况下的尸体的社会态度和做法的理解，并探讨对政策制定和实践的影响，例如。教会、地方当局和墓地管理者应该如何利用空间来容纳不同的信仰团体，制造商可以为日益增长的“绿色”葬礼市场生产什么样的新产品，旅游公司如何敏感地利用人类遗骸来获得经济利益？在所有这些背景和过程中，研讨会的目的还在于更好地了解公众的态度，以确保以敏感和合乎道德的方式处理死者。

Encounters with dead bodies are becoming more commonplace in a range of socio-cultural, socio-economic, political, medical and emotional contexts. However, public understanding of, and academic research regarding, these encounters is limited and not very coherent. Changing social attitudes, new technologies, migration and multi-culturalism, medical demands and economic opportunities relating to dead bodies are changing rapidly. Migrant communities bring different demands in terms of claims on space connected to the rituals and practices of bodily disposal in the UK (eg. how are cemeteries organized, how can different burial practices be accommodated?). Social trends regarding the dead body are also changing. There is a strong class divergence with respect to viewing the body before burial, for example. Alternative choices of bodily disposal are also increasingly popular, such as different ways of disposing of funerary ashes or choices about forms of 'green' burial. Forms of artistic practice (eg. the "Bodyworlds" exhibition of plasticised human remains), archaeology (eg. Richard III's remains), popular culture (eg. TV forensic crime series) and tourism products (eg. 'dark tourism') and their media coverage have made human remains more visible in the everyday. The donation of bodies for medical research and the global trade in post-mortem body parts, combined with the growth of technologies that make these possible, also bring the dead body into play in contemporary social encounters which raise important questions about the regulation and management of biomedical material and the experience of relatives of the dead.This series of meetings will thus bring together a wide range of researchers and practitioners with the aim of increasing understanding of these changing social trends related to managing, disposing of and presenting dead bodies. In each seminar a range of international academics and professionals involved in managing human remains will debate present-day societal, cultural, ethical and technological concerns related to the dead. The discussions will cover a wide range of contexts, from funerals to tourism, donating bodies for medical research to the economic trade in body parts, accommodating 'green' and faith-based requirements for burial, understanding the ethics of disturbing human remains (eg. in major infrastructure projects such as London Crossrail or HS2), to the use of dead bodies by political regimes. The seminars will also produce information for the various professionals and members of the public who encounter the dead in these contexts. A key outcome is to enhance understandings of social attitudes and practices with regard to the dead body in these situations and to explore the implications for policy-making and practice eg. how should churches, local authorities and cemetery managers use space to accommodate different faith groups, what kinds of new products might a manufacturer produce for the growing market in 'green' burials, how might a tourism company sensitively use human remains for economic gain? In all of these contexts and processes the seminars are also aimed at generating a better understanding of public attitudes in order to ensure that the dead are dealt with sensitively and in an ethical way.