DABOH Group at Ráday Library, Budapest (Balaton Conference, 16-23 August 2008)
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The IAMS Mission Study Group, Documentation, Archives, Bibliography and Oral History (DABOH) came into being in the earliest meetings of IAMS following its inception in 1972. It now has an active core of more than fifty members worldwide.
Over 35 years the aims expressed in the purpose statement below have renewed our belief that archives and the documentation of the mission of the church are about life and the future. As mission studies and missiology have matured as disciplines essential to a global and cross-cultural understanding of Christian faith, we remain committed to finding ways to "Rescue the memory of our peoples" and to ground critical and theological reflection on the mission of the church in the historical and cultural experiences of the people of God.
DABOH exists to help rescue the memory of our people by:
promoting the documentation (with due emphasis on recording personal memoirs through oral history and other means) of the mission of the Christian church around the world, especially in regions where infrastructures do not exist for such endeavours;
encouraging the support, development and use of archives for mission;
stimulating the preparation and distribution of material to enable mission studies and other researchers to identify, locate and access primary material on the mission of the church in their own country and worldwide; and
networking with individuals and groups with related concerns, and facilitating multilateral, ecumenical, inter-cultural and international conversation to further our understanding of worldwide Christianity.
A Panel of Reference was appointed after the successful Balaton Conference in August 2008, tasked to promote DABOH; identify and encourage local initiatives; and encourage international collaboration.
Present members include:
The 2008 Balaton Conference mandated the following three tasks for 2008-2012:
Following the success of the publication of the Rosemary Seton and Martha Smalley’s Archives Manual into seven languages, DABOH will prepare two best-practice manuals, for (a) digitalisation projects; and (b) documentation of grey literature. We are delighted that Mrs Rosemary Seton and Professor Paul Stuehrenberg will take up these respective tasks.
The Russian edition of the Archives Manual will be available by mid 2009.
To mark the centenary of the Edinburgh 1910 Conference, DABOH will convene a Workshop in the final week of May 2010 on “Documenting Christianity in Contexts of Transition”. We are planning for a gathering of 20-25 practitioners and stakeholders from regions where the Christian community is undergoing huge transitions. The proposed Workshop aims (a) to explore the theology of archives in contexts of transition; and (b) to discuss the draft of two commissioned best-practice manuals, one on digitizing missionary materials and the other on documenting gray literature.
Mrs Rosemary Seton (SOAS) and Dr Danut Manastireanu (World Vision, the Middle East & Eastern Europe region) are the co-chairs of the Programme Design Group for this Workshop. Other members include: Dr Mark Gornik (City Seminary of New York) , Dr Rüdiger Kröger (Moravian Archives, Herrnhut), Mrs Claire-Lise Lombard (DÉFAP, Paris), Dr Peter Penner (IBTS, Prague), Dr Michael Poon (Trinity Theological College, Singapore) and Professor Paul Stuehrenberg (YDSL, New Haven). The Workshop will be held at the Moravian Archives, Herrnhut, Germany. The Workshop will also be an occasion in marking the 250th anniversary of the death of Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf.
DABOH encourages its study group members to take up local initiatives. At the same time, we seek ways to foster ingenuity and fresh initiatives among individuals and institutions. We recommend IAMS to make small funds available to assist those starting new projects.
One
direct outcome of the Balaton Conference is the launch of the Central
and Eastern European Association for Mission Studies (CEEAMS) DABOH
group, headed by Dr Danut Manastireanu. We look forward to
working with DABOH-CEEAMS in promoting documentation in Central
and Eastern Europe.
Archivists from Europe also proposed
drawing up a list or directory of major missionary archives starting
with Western Europe and hopefully extending this to include collections
in Central and Eastern Europe. We warmly welcome this initiative,
and look forward to the fruits of this collaboration between
archivists in Western, Central and Eastern Europe.
Highlights in our history include consultations which took stock of the need for archives for mission and which gave encouragement to the development of bibliographies, electronic and print, and support to oral history.
At the 1992 IAMS Conference a statement on Archives for Mission was drawn up affirming that "if we lose our way to the past, we lose our way to the future."
In Rome in 2002 the consultation Rescuing the Memory of Our Peoples led to the production of an archives manual designed to help churches and people around the world develop and safeguard their own archives resources.
The DABOH Study Group in the IAMS Port Dickson Assembly 2004 undertook to translate the Archives Manual into major languages of the world. English, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean and Swahili versions of the Manual were produced by 2007. They are now available for free download through the Yale University Divinity School Library, Overseas Ministries Study Center, and the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia websites. An oral history manual, Doing Oral History: Helping Christians tell their own stories by Jean-Paul Wiest is also available for download through the above links. The Archives Manual is available in printed form from the Overseas Ministries Study Center.
From 16-23 August 2008, DABOH held a Conference on Mission and Memory: Documenting World Christianity in the 21st Century at Balaton, Hungary. Click here for the papers presented at the Conference.
To join the DABOH Group, please write to the Convener Michael Poon, Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, Trinity Theological College, Singapore. We welcome mission historians, practitioners, archivists and librarians to join the DABOH Group.
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For 2002 to 2004 activities including the Rome 2002 Conference see Rescuing the Memory of our Peoples
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