Materiality and Spatiality of Death Burial and Commemoration

<p>Death dying and burial produce artefacts and occur in spatial contexts. The interplay between such materiality and the bereaved who commemorate the dead yields interpretations and creates meanings that can change over time. Materiality is more than simple matter void of meaning or relevance. The apparent inanimate has meaning. It is charged with significance has symbolic and interpretative value—perhaps a form of selfhood which originates from the interaction with the animate. In our case gravestones bodily remains and the spatial order of the cemetery are explored for their material agency and relational constellations with human perceptions and actions. Consciously and unconsciously by interacting with such materiality one is creating meaning while materiality retroactively provides a form of agency. Spatiality provides more than a mere context: it permits and shapes such interaction. Thus artefacts mementos and memorials are exteriorised materialised and spatialized forms of human activity: they can be understood as cultural forms the function of which is to sustain social life. However they are also the medium through which values ideas and criteria of social distinction are reproduced legitimised or transformed.</p><p>This book will explore this interplay by going beyond the consideration of simple grave artefacts on the one hand and graveyards as a space on the other hand to examine the specific interrelationships between materiality spatiality the living and the dead. </p><p>The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal <i>Mortality</i>.</p>