Description
Book SynopsisEstablishing a new set of international perspectives from around the world on experiences of death, disposition and remembrance in urban environments, this book brings deathscapes – material, embodied and emotional places associated with dying and death – to life. It pushes the boundaries of established empirical and conceptual understandings of death in urban spaces through anthropological, geographical and ethnographic insights.
Chapters reveal how urban deathscapes are experienced, used, managed and described in specific locales in varied settings; how their norms and values intersect and at times conflict with the norms of dominant and assumed practices; and how they are influenced by the dynamic practices, politics and demographics typical of urban spaces. Case studies from across Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America highlight the differences between deathscapes, but also show their clear commonality in being as much a part of the world of the living as they are of the dead.
With a people- and space-centred approach, this book will be an interesting read for human geography, death studies and urban studies scholars, as well as social and cultural anthropologists and sociologists. Its international and interdisciplinary nature will also make this a beneficial book for planning and landscape architecture, religious studies and courses on death practices.
Trade Review‘This volume challenges us to rethink the diversity of deathscapes – not just cemeteries and columbaria but also retirement homes, hospitals, museums and Facebook pages. Through the fraught terrain of death, the window on life is turned upside-down, giving us a ground-up view of contestations across social-political, familial and technological spheres.’ -- Brenda Yeoh, National University of Singapore
‘Focussing on the urban areas where most humans now live and where conflict, insecurity, migration and violence can characterise death as well as life, this fascinating, disturbing yet hopeful book re-sets the agenda for research into deathscapes.’ -- Tony Walter, University of Bath, UK
Table of ContentsContents: 1 Introduction: continuity, change, and contestation in urban deathscapes 1 Mariske Westendorp and Danielle House PART I SOCIO-POLITICAL DEATHSCAPES 2 Informal deathscapes in metropolitan Lima as cultural knowledge systems 21 Christien Klaufus 3 Between life, death, and modernity at Bukit Brown Cemetery, Singapore 42 See Mieng Tan and Benedict J.W. Yeo 4 There’s no place like home: minority-majority dialogue, contestation, and ritual negotiation in cemeteries and crematoria spaces 61 Katie McClymont, Yasminah Beebeejaun, Avril Maddrell, Brenda Mathijssen, Danny McNally, and Sufyan Dogra PART II FAMILIAL DEATHSCAPES 5 Negotiating the aesthetics of mourning in Luxembourg: on pre-modern forms in post-modern spaces 83 Elisabeth Boesen 6 “The crocodile is stronger in the water”: Swakopmund jetty as a place of death in Namibia 107 Jack Boulton 7 Adapting to ‘one-size-fits-all’: constructing appropriate Islamic burial spaces in Northwestern Europe 124 Danielle House, Mariske Westendorp, Vevila Dornelles, Helena Nordh, and Farjana Islam PART III TECHNOLOGISED DEATHSCAPES 8 Mechanical grievability: urban graves for the solo dead in Japan 145 Anne Allison 9 Being existed by another through the sensory: the ungrievable deaths of industrial pigs in slaughterhouse tours 162 Eimear Mc Loughlin 10 Mexico City’s exceptional deathscapes: the disappeared, (digital) bodies, molecular speculations 180 Arely Cruz-Santiago 11 Afterword: urban deathscapes – bodies, ritual spaces, urban inequalities, pressures, and opportunities 198 Avril Maddrell Index 204
