A student-driven eldwork method, focused in a local metropolitan area, is described and assessed. Developed for a second-level course in cultural geography, it was inspired by the 'Geographical Expeditions' originally devised by William Bunge in the 1960s. It is one solution to maintaining eldwork in the syllabus for a large class, at the same time as providing bene ts for participants in terms of challenge and autonomy. Student responses are compared with the merits of eldwork as claimed in the literature. In view of concerns expressed about increasing student 'disengagement' from commitment to university study, active participation in a 'Geographical Expedition' is a strong motivating factor.
Accommodating the dead in Hong Kong is more than a planning issue. A study of Hong Kong's urban cemeteries and columbaria reveals that they are associated with a cosmography, or world view, suffused with fengshui. They are regarded by many Chinese people in Hong Kong as dangerous and powerful places that link earth, heaven and the underworld, i.e. the material and non-material worlds. Their unique time-geography involves year-round desertion except at the appropriate time for graveside rituals related to ancestor veneration. The different forms of burial -either in coffins, or in urns for ashes or for bonesrequire different spaces. This paper summarises the historical development of the provision of such spaces in Hong Kong and provides a descriptive analysis of four of them. It emerges that Hong Kong's cemeteries have a strongly, though not exclusively, secular significance. Furthermore, inscriptions on grave tablets indicate the position in the lineage, and the ancestral place, of those buried there.
Honouring the dead at their graveside at appropriate dates is required by Confucian tradition, and has always had significant time – space implications in Korea. Today, with the majority of Koreans now living in cities—a dramatic shift in the last two generations—many still travel to patrilineal ancestral villages to carry out the necessary annual rites in family graveyards established long ago. However, an official campaign to encourage cremation in Seoul was initiated in 1998. A small, space-saving family tomb has been designed to hold the ashes of up to twenty-four family members, and is being promoted at public cemeteries. Fieldwork was carried out into deathscapes in the vicinity of Seoul in late 1999. The paper describes small family graveyards, including one established generations ago and two that have been newly established. It also describes different types of columbaria, two of which employ the traditional dome shape of Korean graves. Discussion focuses on the persistent cultural significance of maintaining ties with patrilineal places of origin. We suggest that this is a valued Confucian dimension of Korean heritage; many are seeking manageable ways to incorporate this dimension in their predominantly urban time – space commitments. From family graveyard to columbarium, there is a progressive divorce from ancestral territory (the family graveyard in the patrilineal village) and from social context (lineage).
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