On November 2-3, the Hrant Dink Foundation organized an international conference in Mardin, Turkey to discuss economical changes and social dynamism experienced in the city and its surroundings between 1838 and 1938. 

Entitled ''Social and Economic History of Mardin and Region'', the meeting was organized with the support of Medical Association of Mardin, Mardin Bar Association, KAMER Mardin, Mardin Cinema Society and Turabdin Assyrian Culture and Solidarity Association.

The goal of the organizers was to fill a gap in the field of social history of the area.

Rakel Dink, President of the Hrant Dink Foundation, and Evgil Türker, President of the Federation of Syriac Associations, offered opening speeches.

Cengiz Aktar, who spoke on behalf of the organizational committee, put an emphasis on democracy and confronting history.

Those presenting papers included Osman Köker  ("Population, Economy and Cultural Diversity in the Sandjak of Mardin at the Beginning of the 20th Century”), Ara Sarafian ("Mapping Communities: Arisdages Devgants and his Report on Siirt, 1878"),  Elçin Macar ("The American Protestant Missionaries and their Institutions in Mardin”) and Martin Tamcke  ("On the Way to the Bagdad Railway: Germans in and on Mardin”).

French-Armenian historian Raymond Kevorkian spoke about the common fate of Assyrians, Armenians, Jews and Gypsies in the session entitled “Violence, Pogrom and Genocide in Mardin"