Memorialisation and

Spirituality: An Issue of

Replacement

Candidate Number: 62825 Word Count: 9,147

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In the midst of life we are in death.
(Book of Common Prayer, 1662: The Burial of the Dead)

2
Contents

Introduction 4

Chapter One 8

Chapter Two 16

Chapter Three 24

Conclusion 38

Bibliography 40

Appendix 47

3
Introduction

Drive any distance along rural roads or through a city centre in England today, and

you are likely to pass at least one clutch of wilting flowers, tied to railings or simply

placed at the roadside, occasionally accompanied by a yellow police sign appealing

for witnesses to a fatal incident. The flowers have become so ubiquitous as to render

them unremarkable, yet they visibly indicate a major paradigm shift in the way we

culturally respond to death. Initially inspired by these poignant expressions of loss,

my dissertation seeks to uncover the sociological significance of burgeoning trends in

memorialisation.

Preliminary research for this project suggested a relationship between

emerging forms of memorialisation and the shift from organised religion to holistic

spirituality noted by a significant body of recent research. Death uniquely forces

confrontation with questions of how to ritualise and what to believe, and so “the

commemoration of the dead speaks much about the state of society, the place of

religion and afterlife beliefs within it” (Jupp, 2001: 218). Despite the eruption of

sociological work on death in the last fifteen years, and while the secularisation

debate rumbles on and studies of holistic spirituality proliferate, the ties between

religious change and memorialisation have received remarkably scant attention. This

dissertation sets out to address this paucity, and to ultimately conclude whether, and

how satisfactorily, new forms of memorialisation in England are replacing those

guided by the Anglican Church.

This study seeks to explore the ways in which contemporary society interprets

and marks the death of an individual, drawing on concepts of memory, authority and

the sacred, and tying into a wider sociology of religion. It exploits a scheme of ideal

types to paint a broad image of social change, concentrating on general trends rather

than the differences which remain between social groups, and between individuals.
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 The first chapter delineates the area of research by offering a definition of

‘memorial culture’, before drawing on the work of Peter Jupp (2001) to suggest that

memorial culture fulfils four central social tasks: disposing of the mortal remains;

transmitting the identity of the deceased to a community of the dead; reincorporating

the deceased into the memories of the bereaved, and interpreting the meaning of

death, providing answers to existential questions. These four themes are revisited

throughout the dissertation as an analytical framework through which to consider

changes in memorial culture. The chapter concludes by explicating ‘holistic

spirituality’ and differentiating it from ‘organised religion’, structuring the consideration

of forms of belief in the following chapters.

The second chapter explores the relationship between the declining influence

of organised religion in England and how death is memorialised. It outlines memorial

culture as it manifests under the Church of England, and reviews how this model of

memorialisation responds to the social functions outlined in chapter one. Lastly, this

chapter suggests that religion no longer authoritatively guides memorial culture, and

explores the reasons for this shift.

Third and final chapter investigates the natural death movement as a new

paradigm of death and memorialisation, and considers how this model performs the

four social functions identified by Jupp (2001). It asserts that the natural death

movement does not satisfactorily address issues of transmission, reincorporation and

interpretation, and suggests that alternative cultural strategies have developed to

fulfil the first two of these functions.

The conclusion draws out and ties together the main themes of the

dissertation. It evaluates the significance of emerging forms of memorial culture, and

how satisfactorily they fulfil the social functions outlined in Jupp’s (2001) framework,

before identifying areas for further research.

Contemporary memorial culture is a difficult area to research. While deaths

are meticulously recorded, data on funerals is sparse, and work on more informal

and ephemeral forms of memorialisation fragmentary at best. Further, there are

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obvious ethical issues associated with approaching the bereaved with a barrage of

personal questions on such an emotionally fraught subject. Duly avoiding contact

with individuals memorialising their dead, I approached this study by entering into

correspondence with a small group of individuals engaged in the memorial market:

‘civil’ and humanist funeral celebrants; a memorial mason; and a representative from

The Natural Death Centre. Initially, these individuals were sent a short

questionnaire1 designed to expand my understanding of emerging trends in cultural

reactions to death, and some were also kind enough to enter into further

correspondence, answering my questions as they arose. This initial research was

not intended to be a comprehensive set of empirical interviews, but to open new

avenues of study and suggest areas of interest. The responses from these

individuals gave me a better understanding of emerging forms of memorialisation,

and developed my focus from the specifics of monuments towards a broader

sociology of practices of cultural memorialisation.

Eschewing substantial empirical research does not confine this dissertation

to drawing solely on the dusty texts of the library aisles; instead it is informed by an

eclectic range of secondary sources including textual analysis of non-sociological

literature2 and websites3, an approach which allows me to take an inductive approach

to theory generation and embed sociological observation in social occurrence. To

better explore how memorial culture is woven into the social and academic fabric, I

have tried not to limit my research by disciplinary boundaries, and occasionally

assimilated anthropological, geographical and historical concepts, while maintaining

a sociological perspective.

1
A copy of the questions sent is available as appendix 1.
2
Burman (2006; unknown); Cooper (2006); Council for the Care of Churches (2001); Francis
(2004); Local Government White Paper (2006); McSherry (2006); Mintel Market Intelligence
(2007); Sheppy (2003); RGR Memorials (2007); Weinrich & Speyer (2003); Willson (1990);
Woodward (2005). Full references in Bibliography.
3
British Humanist Association; British School of Spiritual Knowledge; Hampshire County
Council; Hospice Information; National Council for Palliative Care.
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Chapter One

This chapter expounds the concepts which underpin and inform my argument,

starting by setting out a sociologically grounded definition of ‘memorial culture’. I

then contend that memorial culture resolves the issues arising from human mortality,

putting forward a framework of topics which will structure my consideration of

memorial culture in later chapters. Finally, I introduce two distinct models of belief;

delineating and contrasting ‘organised religion’ and ‘holistic spirituality’.

Memorial culture defined

The term ‘memorial culture’ may initially conjure images of a traditional Anglican

funeral at which sombrely dressed mourners gather to watch as the coffin-ensconced

body is lowered gently into the ground of an idyllic parochial churchyard while a priest

gently iterates the funeral liturgy, the site left to be later marked by an engraved

stone slab. It may also invoke images of civil structures – the Cenotaph in Whitehall,

or the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. – or to some recall the sea of

flowers left at the gates of Buckingham Palace, and the lonely bunch of wilting

blooms left at the site of a road accident.

It is a term that crops up occasionally in academic discourse 4, yet lacks a

substantive definition. In the context of this dissertation, ‘memorial culture’ is

conceptualised as the cultural response to the death of an individual, encompassing

rituals and monuments that focus explicitly on the dead. To prevent the concept

becoming too vague and unwieldy, it excludes both the literature and practice

4
Holly Everett (2002) uses the term ‘memorial culture’ in the title of her study on roadside
memorials, otherwise it is largely employed in reference to German and Israeli responses to
the holocaust, possibly stemming from use by Andreas Huyssen (1996).
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surrounding the dying process, and more general reflections on human mortality

(such as museums and archives, see Bauman, 1992). Breaking down this definition

necessitates a brief exploration of both ‘ritual’ and ‘monument’.

As this dissertation centres on observing emerging trends in memorialisation

both within and outside collective and organised religion, it is vital to move away from

‘ritual’ as conceptualised in reference to the reflection and consolidation of social

solidarity (Durkheim, 2001 [1912]: 36), or in terms of invariance, formality, and the

conservation of social conventions (Rappaport: 1999: 27). A dynamic and

experiential definition is offered by Catherine Bell, who suggests ritualisation to be “a

matter of various culturally specific strategies for setting some activities off from

others, for creating and privileging a qualitative distinction between the ‘sacred’ and

the ‘profane’” (1992: 74). In discussing ‘ritualisation’ rather than ‘ritual’ Bell

emphasises the process of transcendence without limiting its form or content, untying

the concept from the ‘supernatural’ and allowing ritual to be conceptualised as not

simply the mechanical expression of previously existing patterns, but also as a space

for innovation.

The operative definition of a ‘monument’ is somewhat simpler, here referring

to “the material structure around which both personal and collective mourning take

place” (Homans, 2000: 22). However, It is important to stress the diversity of

‘monuments’ in this context, where the term refers equally to traditional markers

(such as tombstones and war memorials), and to more ephemeral or mundane sites

– such as flowers marking the site of death – which may more commonly be referred

to as ‘memorials’ (e.g. Everett, 2002; Walter, 1999).

Memorial culture: a response to human mortality

Having outlined memorial culture, I move on to exploring how it guides social

reactions to death. I contend that memorial culture operates to resolve issues arising

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from each individual death, and that identifying these issues opens a sociological

consideration of the role of memorial culture in society. Taking a similar approach,

Peter Jupp (2001) analyses funerary ritual by outlining its functions. His structure of

disposal, transmission, reincorporation and interpretation is here explored and

expanded to better reflect memorial culture in its entirety.

The first issue is one of disposal. Death inevitably leaves a physical body

which requires disposal for both emotional and public health reasons (Jupp, 2001:

219). Memorial culture responds to the problematic corpse by authoritatively guiding

the form and spatial location of its disposal, as mortuary customs are wound into the

ritual handling of the deceased.

Jupp conceptualises the second issue as one of transmission of the dead

person’s identity into the next world, adding that declining belief in the after-life have

given this function a secular slant: the recall of the life, achievements and character

of the dead person (2001: 220-1). The funeral ritual marks the end of the liminal

period during which the body is physically present but spiritually absent, transmitting

the dead into another domain, and into memory (Mates & Davies, 2005: 360-2). The

sentiments verbalised at a funeral, engraved as an epitaph or embodied in a

monument serve to reaffirm the identity and list the virtues of the dead, committing

them to the afterlife, to a community of the dead, and to the memories of the

bereaved.

The third issue is one of reincorporation: enabling the bereaved to cope with

their situation and adjust to a new normality (Jupp, 2001: 221). Memorial culture

manages this readjustment, and facilitating continued communication between the

living and the dead through material structures which visually recall and embody the

deceased.

The final issue Jupp lists is one of interpretation (2001: 222): where the

responsibility lies for interpreting death, and what meanings are ascribed to human

mortality. This ties into issues of authority, and into Anthony Giddens’ approach to

death in terms of ontological security. The concept refers to a confidence that the
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natural and social worlds are as they appear to be: to be ontologically secure is to

possess “’answers to fundamental existential questions” (Giddens, 1991: 47).

Following Peter Berger (1967), Giddens argues that death challenges ontological

security: human consciousness of mortality is “associated with anxieties of an utterly

fundamental sort”, which can potentially undermine all we hold to be real and of value

(1991: 50). As both Giddens (1991) and Chris Shilling argue, death has become a

“particular existential problem for people as a result of modern forms of embodiment”

(Shilling, 2003: 153). Satisfactory interpretations of death prevent it from

undermining what is understood to be ‘meaningful’ and ‘real’; if societies fail to deal

with death adequately, then not only do individuals have to face extreme terrors of

personal meaninglessness, but the social order as a whole becomes vulnerable to

collapsing into chaos (Berger, cited in Mellor, 1993: 14). Memorial culture operates

to both communicate and maintain reassuring structures of interpretation, drawing on

‘sources of significance’ – authoritative and normative reservoirs of meaning (Heelas

& Woodhead, 2000: 133-4) – to answer existential questions and potentially diffuse

challenges to ontological security.

The analytical framework outlined above will underlie the evaluation in the

following chapters of how memorial culture responds to death under both organised

religion and holistic spirituality, concepts outlined below.

Separating organised religion from holistic spirituality

The shift from organised religion towards an increasingly holistic, subjective and

experiential spirituality has been traced by numerous sociological studies exploring

contemporary religious practice in England and the United States (Wuthnow, 1998;

Roof, 1999; Carette & King, 2005; Heelas & Woodhead, 2005). Supported by

“survey after survey showing that increasing numbers of people would now prefer to

call themselves ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘religious’” (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005:1), these

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studies reveal a significant recalibration of belief, and I am interested in exploring the

impact of this on how death is conceived and memorialised. In preparation for this

exploration, this section conceptualises and contrasts ‘holistic spirituality’ and

‘organised religion’.

James Beckford uses the term ‘holistic spirituality’ to refer to a “relatively new

form of liberal and tolerant spirituality spreading both inside and outside religious

organisations” (1992: 17). He refrains from offering a tight definition, instead taking a

fluid perspective in order to take stock of what he suggests is a “general shift in

sensibility and ethos”, not a specific programme of social change or a separate form

of religious practice (ibid.: 18). Beckford does however note some aspects of holistic

spirituality, suggesting that it strains towards a holistic perspective emphasising

interconnectedness; focuses on ‘little transcendences’ without necessarily

referencing the supernatural, and is compatible with a wide range of specific

ideologies and practices, having already made inroads deep into public thinking

about ecology, peace gender and health" (ibid.: 17-18).

The distinction between holistic spirituality and organised religion is to some

extent anticipated by Durkheim, who differentiates between a “free, private, optional

religion, fashioned according to one’s own needs… [and] a religion handed down by

tradition, formulated by a whole group, and which is obligatory to practice” (cited in

Carrette & King, 2005: 67). ‘Organised religion’ is religion as Durkheim conceives it:

“a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say,

things set apart… that unite its adherents in a single moral community… inseparable

from the idea of the church… [and] eminently collective” (2001 [1912]: 46). Working

through this definition of religion, it becomes clear how organised religion and holistic

spirituality contrast: indeed, the shift may be concieved as one from Durkheimian

religion to its inverse.

Firstly, while for Durkheim religion offers a ‘unified system of beliefs and

practices’, Beckford suggests that formally unitary systems of religious meaning have

undoubtedly fragmented (1992: 19), leaving individuals to draw on an eclectic mix of

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spiritual resources, “piecing together their faith like a patchwork quilt” (Wuthnow,

1998: 2).

Secondly, Durkheim places the sacred apart from the everyday, to the extent

that it constitutes a distinctly separate domain (2001 [1912]: 36). From a traditional

religion emphasising segregated sacred spaces, Robert Wuthnow differentiates a

‘spirituality of seeking’, which negates the sharp symbolic boundaries between

sacred and profane; instead ephemerally locating the sacred “in experiences as

different as mowing the lawn or viewing a full moon” (1998: 5). As Paul Heelas and

Linda Woodhead observe, holistic expressions of spirituality identify sacred truths as

being ‘this worldly’, and essentially inseparable from everyday life (2005: 5-6).

Thirdly, while Durkheim suggests religion to be collective, ‘uniting its

adherents into a single moral community’, holistic spirituality is decidedly

individualised, operating as a personal, experiential and internal search for meaning,

contrasting the public, social nature of organised religion (Roof, 1999: 57). As such,

holistic spirituality is privatised (Carette & King, 2005: 54), actively fragmentary

(Heelas & Woodhead, 2005: 4), and encourages a diversity of ‘moral visions’ (Roof,

1999: 290-2).

Finally, while organised religion is inseparable from the church, Heelas and

Woodhead suggest that in locating transcendent meanings in ‘this world’, holistic

spiritualities negate the need to mediate the sacred through institutions, scripture or

the clergy (2005: 5-6). Instead, spirituality has come to be mediated through the

market (Carrette & King, 2005), allowing individuals to freely and subjectively

negotiate between “competing glimpses of the sacred” (Wuthnow, 1998:3).

While organised religion operates through traditional religious institutions,

expressions of holistic spirituality are rather more diverse, materialising both explicitly

and implicitly. Explicitly, holistic spirituality manifests in esoteric practices such as

astrology, tarot and crystals (ORB, 2000, cited in Bruce, 2002: 81); therapy groups

(Birch, 1996); and health and relaxation techniques such as yoga, homeopathy and

tai chi (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005: 24). These practices are united by a discourse
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prioritising experiential knowledge, the discovery of the self, authentic self expression

and the quest to ‘reconcile body and soul’ (Birch, 1996; Burman, 2006; Heelas &

Woodhead, 2005: 2-5). While the number of individuals significantly and actively

involved in forms of holistic spirituality is relatively low and does not represent a

‘spiritual revolution’ (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005: 55), the proliferation of popular

literature, health treatments and spiritual services (the ‘spiritual marketplace’) is

indicative of its extensive influence (ibid.: 68-70).

The holistic shift is also implicit, seeping into educational curricula,

bereavement and addiction counselling, psychotherapy and nursing (Carrette & King,

2005: 1), swinging service provision away from hierarchical ‘expert knowledge’, and

towards a focus on subjective experience: ‘child-centred’ learning and ‘patient-

centred’ healthcare (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005: 5). For example, in healthcare,

there has been an explosion of interest in spirituality (McSherry, 2006: 35), with

nursing practice significantly shifting towards considering subjective well-being, and

defining this in terms of spiritual, as well as physical health (Heelas, 2006).

The implicit influence of holistic spirituality is also evident within organised

religion: a significant number of religious institutions and places of worship are

moving towards facilitating subjective and individual explorations of the sacred

(Heelas & Woodhead, 2005: 67; Wuthnow, 1998: 17). This shift is evident in texts

published by organised religions – for example, a recent book on coping with

bereavement published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

emphasises the role of religion as one of helping an individual to trust their own

feelings, and to become aware of their ‘inner self’ (Woodward, 2005: 10).

The following chapters will draw on this structure to distinguish between

manifestations of memorial culture guided by organised religion (primarily the

Anglican Church in the English context) and those influenced by forms of holistic

spirituality.

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Chapter Two

This chapter focuses on memorial culture as it manifests under organised religion. I

begin by suggesting that memorial culture in England has traditionally been regulated

by The Anglican Church, before returning to the framework set out in the first chapter

in order to explore how Christianity addresses the issues raised by human mortality.

Finally, I posit that contemporary memorial culture has moved significantly away from

this paradigm, presenting evidence for this, and exploring the causes of this shift.

Memorial culture and organised religion

In this section, I argue that memorial culture in England has been historically tied to

organised religion, specifically the Anglican Church, supporting this argument with

Tony Walter’s (1994) concept of the ‘traditional death’, and with historical accounts of

memorial culture. I then return to the analytical framework set out in the first chapter

to uncover how memorial culture guided by The Church of England responds to the

issues raised by death.

While arguing that organised religion authoritatively shapes early-modern and

Victorian memorial culture, I wish to avoid the criticism of over-homogenisation often

levelled at Philippe Ariès’ (1981) broadly chronological scheme of mentalités (e.g.

Whaley, 1981: 9), by making clear that what I am outlining is an ideal type. The

‘ideal type’ has been influentially advocated as an analytical tool by Max Weber

([1904] 1949). Under Weber’s conceptualisation, the method avoids any attempt to

average what actually exists or to describe reality, instead offering a ‘unified thought

construct’ exaggerating the seminal and constitutive aspects of a social

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phenomenon, and facilitating juxtaposition and comparison with other ideal types

(ibid.: 100-2).

Tony Walter (1994) sets up a tripartite typology of ideal types (‘traditional’;

‘modern’ and ‘neo-modern’ deaths) to explore changing reactions death in England.

The quintessence of the ‘traditional death’ lies within the pervading authority of the

Anglican Church: the dying person is symbolically placed in the hands of God and

administered to by the clergy, while the meaning of death itself is embodied and

controlled by Christian belief and metaphor, and the bereaved comforted with prayer

and liturgy (Walter, 1994: 54-5). While the traditional death is not temporally tied –

many contemporary deaths continue to be structured by religious authority – cultural

responses to death are not free floating; as Walter notes, they reflect a particular

social context which in turn enables a particular structure of authority (1994: 47). The

‘traditional death’ essentially encapsulates early-modern and Victorian memorial

culture; a period in which the Church of England dealt with the vast majority of

funerals (Jalland, 1996: 216), and during which there existed a consensus (and

indeed social imperative) to memorialise in line with the dominant paradigm

(Richardson, 1989: 115). The dominance of the traditional death and the authority of

the Church to regulate memorial culture weakens during the Victoria’s reign, and is

eventually supplanted by the rational, medical and individualised ‘modern’ death,

which comes to predominate in the early twentieth century (Walter, 1994: 14-24).

Disposal, transmission, reincorporation and interpretation

The religiously guided response to death is shaped and undergirded by theological

principles, intrinsically linking issues of disposal, transmission, reincorporation and

interpretation. Nonetheless, I will separate these issues to some extent in order to

demonstrate how traditional memorial culture resolves the issues raised by death.

The Church of England responds to the need to dispose of the body by

asserting control over mortal remains: the dead remain in the domain of the Church,

literally interred in ‘God’s acre’ – prior to the mid-nineteenth century there was little
15
choice but to commit the dead to the parish churchyard, as the Church held a virtual

monopoly on the provision of burial ground (Jupp, 2005: 114). The imperative to

retain control of the body is evident in the issues around cremation. While for most

Victorians cremation was not even contemplated as burial was supported by family

tradition (Jalland, 1996: 207) and by popular eschatological concern with bodily

resurrection (Ariès, 1981: 310), its increasing social acceptance in the twentieth

century led to an initial bid by the Anglican Church to maintain control of the body by

requiring that ashes be interred in consecrated ground (Jupp, 2001: 227).

Memorial culture functions to assert the identity of the deceased, and to

transmit that identity into the afterlife. The traditional funeral ritual provides an

opportunity to contemplate the virtues of the dead (Jupp, 2001: 217), but liturgically

focuses on the place of the deceased within Christian theology (Sheppy, 2004: 179).

However, this transmission vies with that into memory. The tension between a

consideration of human mortality and remembrance of the individual deceased erupts

materially in the design of grave markers: the desire for posthumous recognition led

Victorian epitaphs to draw on increasingly non-Christian expressions of death and

eternity (Vita, 1998), while contemporaneous gravestone imagery reflects both the

Victorian eschatological emphasis on resurrection and eternal life (through images of

winged cherubs, upwardly-pointed fingers etc.) as well as more earthly symbols of

professional affiliation (Keister, 2004: 8). Interring the body in the ‘shade of the

church’ accomplishes a further transmission, passing the dead into a community of

the deceased of the local parish, and into the entire community of believers

(Wheeler, 1994: 61). This community is made visually manifest by the grave markers

encircling the church (figure 1), representing the incorporation of every inhabitant of

the parish in a chain of belief stretching from the past to the future (Hervieu-Léger,

2000: 132).

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 Figure one: Eyam Churchyard, Derbyshire

Memorial culture also responds to the need to adjust the living to the reality of

bereavement. Death confronts mourners with a contradiction: the memory of the

dead must be kept alive while the reality of death and loss must be confronted and

accepted (Ruby, 1995; Silverman et al.: 1996). As Walter states, “the purpose of

grief is not to move on without those who have died, but to find a secure place for

them” (1996: 20). As part of this, the dead must be reincorporated into the lives of

the mourners, a need to which the grave marker responds: the site of the body

provides a space for remembrance, helping to evoke a sense of closeness to the

deceased, mitigating grief by keeping memory alive in a particularly vivid manner

(Jalland, 1996: 291). Monuments placed at the grave are what Pierra Nora terms

lieux de mèmoire, material, symbolic and functional embodiments of memory (1996:

14), which to some extent become fused with the living bodily trace of the departed,

establishing the headstone as a focus for communication with the deceased (Hallam

& Hockey, 2001: 147). Durkheim suggests that for the realms of the profane and the

sacred to communicate, the profane must to some extent be elevated to the level of

17
the sacred (2001 [1912]: 39). Monuments facilitate this transcendence by rupturing

the surface of the mundane: everything inside their spatial and temporal boundaries

is rendered sacred (Turner, 1979: 468), consecrating a space and, however

fleetingly, allowing the bereaved to commune with their dead.

Organised religion establishes a “unified system of beliefs and practices”

(Durkheim, 2001 [1912]: 46), entrenching an overarching, existentially meaningful,

ritual structure through which to interpret death. The responsibility for interpreting

human mortality lies within religious authority, which draws on external and

transcendental sources of significance to answer existential questions. The Christian

solution to mortality hinges on the denial of the finality of death through the

immortality of the soul, making life meaningful as a link in a longer chain of being

(Bauman, 1992: 26). Memorial culture communicates and maintains the theological

interpretation of death: funeral liturgy is suffused with hope of resurrection to the

eternal life of the faithful (Sheppy, 2004), while epitaphs respond to the sleeping of

the soul awaiting judgement (Jupp, 2001: 230), locating the dead “in a neutral state

of repose that lies somewhere between the agitation of the earth and the

contemplativeness of heaven” (Ariès, 1981: 293). In providing a coherent

interpretation of death and in denying its finality, organised religion offers resolution

to existential questions, to some extent negating the threat of death to ontological

security.

Waning religious authority

The twentieth century has witnessed a shift away from this paradigm. In England,

organised religion has been supplanted in providing practical and spiritual resources

for the ritualisation of death. This section evidences the decline of religiously guided

memorial culture, and sketches some of the historical and social factors influencing

this shift.

18
 Illustrating the decline of religious authority over memorial culture is

complicated by the scarcity of quantitative data on contemporary (often ephemeral

and informal) forms of ritualisation and monument. However, deaths are formally

registered and Anglican funerals conscientiously recorded – the Church of England

calculates that parochial funerals were conducted for 44% of all deaths in England in

2004, in addition to an unmeasured number of funerals conducted by chaplains and

retired clergy (Church Statistics, 2005: 11). However, Mary Bradbury suggests that

these statistics are misleading, and that Church of England Funerals continue to

dominate contemporary memorial culture but a significant number are not recorded

as many funeral directors choose not to use the parochial system, instead turning to

‘tame’ (often retired) clergymen to officiate at the funerals of individuals only

nominally belonging to the Church of England and unknown to their local vicar (1999:

88). Drawing from her ethnographic research, she suggests that “even for those who

do not belong to any kind of religious institution and for whom the afterlife remains a

very hazy concept, a good religious send-off with a few familiar hymns can still seem

a natural choice” (Bradbury, 1999: 87-8).

Despite ambiguity over the actual number of English funerals conducted by

the Anglican Church and other religious institutions, it is clear that religion is

decreasingly influential in regulating memorial culture. The number of funerals

conducted within the parochial system is in gradual but steady decline (Church

Statistics, 2005: 11), and while the vast majority of people in Britain still think that it is

important to hold a religious service to mark a death, the proportion who do is falling

(Barley, 2006: 15-16). Society as a whole no longer relies on the church to interpret

human mortality – while royal deaths in the past sparked a public discourse heavily

laced with Christian theology, this perspective was conspicuously missing from the

media reporting following the death of Diana Spencer (Walter, 1999a: 58-60). The

funeral market is recognising this shift, with recent market intelligence suggesting

that “non-traditional funerals provide the main opportunity for growth” (Mintel Market

Intelligence, 2007).
19
 The declining influence of the Anglican Church over memorial culture in

England can be placed within a wider trend towards secularisation. The arguments

around the ‘secularisation’ of modernised Western Europe are highly nuanced and

somewhat complex, and not relevant enough to warrant a clumsy rehashing here.

Instead, as this dissertation focuses on the decline of organised religion as a general

trend, it suffices to restate what sociologists and statisticians have long observed: the

disengagement of religious institutions from public life and the ‘empty’ churches

witnessing falling congregations (Bruce, 2002). However, it may not be assumed

that the falling levels of active membership indicate a concomitant abandonment of

religious rites of passage – various measurements of church attendance and

membership are consistently lower than those of church funerals 5. This discrepancy

may be partly attributed to the significant ‘unchurched’ population, maintaining private

belief while eschewing active religious participation (Davie, 1994).

Outside the (highly ambiguous and disputed) trend towards secularisation,

religious ascendancy over memorial culture has been specifically weakened by the

opening of the market to civil organisations providing services for the disposal of the

body. The introduction of privately run cemeteries in the mid nineteenth century

removed physical remains from the domain of the church and marginalised the role

of the clergy as gatekeepers for the dead (Jupp, 2001: 224). The legalisation of

cremation further weakened the control of the church, as policies surrounding its

introduction legitimised secular cremation services (Jupp, 2001: 227-8) and

geographically shifted the memorial service away from the church building (Sheppy,

2004: 28).

The World Wars further weakened traditional religious memorial culture,

rendering old beliefs and ritual increasingly less relevant and beneficial (Jupp, 2001:

227). War undermined traditional religious interpretations of death as few chaplains

could even hint that soldiers lost in combat could be condemned to hell, gradually
5
e.g. Brierley measures UK church membership (regular and active involvement) at 10% in
2000 (cited in Bruce, 2002: 67); while 33% of Britons attended church at Christmas 2002
(ORB, cited in Barley, 2006, 22).
20
freeing death of spiritual risk and negating imperative for religious ritual (Walter,

1994: 15). Further, war encouraged a reassessment of previously regimented

funerary ritual: as David Cannadine neatly summarises, “death had become so

ubiquitous and tragic, and grief so widespread and overwhelming, that even those

remaining Victorian rituals – probably never effective even in the mid-nineteenth

century – were now recognised as being inadequate, superfluous and irrelevant”

(Cannadine, 1981: 218).

The changes outlined above paved the way for the ascension of the ‘modern’

expression of death, characterised by the sequestration of death and dying to the

private sphere (Ariès, 1981: 559-601); the careful management of the dying by the

medical profession (Bradbury, 1999: 50-55); and the commercial management of

funeral arrangements and disposal (Walter, 1994: 59). However, the modern way of

death is increasingly challenged by holistic spirituality, as the next chapter explores.

21
Chapter Three

As the previous chapter outlined, while most deaths in England continue to be

ritualised within the Anglican Church, cultural changes have challenged the

ascendancy of this archetype, and opened the market to civil alternatives. This

chapter suggests that since the adoption of the modern way of death, society has

undergone a ‘subjective turn’, and is increasingly responding to death outside of

traditional institutions, most notably within the natural death movement. While ever

more popular, when explored using Jupp’s (2001) framework, the natural death

movement fails to satisfactorily transmit the identity of the deceased into a

community of the dead, or reincorporate them into the lives of the bereaved, spurring

the development of alternative cultural strategies to fulfil these needs. Further, the

influence of holistic spirituality on public thought has led memorial culture both within

and outside organised religion to become increasingly this-worldly, placing greater

emphasis on the biography of the deceased and the desires of the bereaved.

However, the refutation of supernatural beliefs is problematic: holistic spirituality is

inherently life-centred and draws only on mundane resources, leaving existential

questions unanswered.

The subjective turn

The ‘subjective turn’ (Taylor, 1992) in contemporary culture manifests in holistic

spirituality, and underpins burgeoning forms of memorialisation. Charles Taylor

suggests that issues “that were once settled by some external reality… are now

referred to our choice” (1992: 81). Drawing on his work, Heelas and Woodhead

argue that subjectivism has become the defining cultural development of modern

22
western culture, manifesting in public thought as a move away from hierarchy and

towards an emphasis on relativised knowledge and individual experience (2005: 5).

This represents a comprehensive shift in discourse, exemplified by the recent White

Paper – prospective legislation advocating a shift from inflexible models of service

provision towards ‘empowered citizens’ (Local Government White Paper, 2006). The

subjective turn shapes contemporary responses to death, and therefore memorial

culture.

While the development of a new authoritative convention in memorial culture

is plainly anathematic to the prioritisation of subjectivism, emerging forms

paradoxically exhibit a high degree of congruence; for example, Prendergast et al.

note that, “cemeteries are now displaying a growing uniformity of ‘individual’ informal

memorialisation” (2006: 895). The anthropologist David Mandelbaum observes such

a trend in American society, suggesting that, “persons bereaved by a death

sometimes find that they have no clear prescription as to what to do next. In such

cases, each has to work out a solution for himself… When individual solutions to

such recurrent and poignant problems are repeatedly made, they may tend to

coalesce and to become institutionalised” (Mandelbaum, 1959: 214). Walter

attributes this coalescence to a social psychology operating when there are few or

conflicting rules for grief; in these circumstances individuals learn how to behave

from one another and the media (Walter, 1999a: 22-3); a model of social learning

also observed in cemeteries, where the newly bereaved commonly take behavioural

cues from other mourners (Francis et al., 2005: 60). This coherence makes possible

the identification of two distinct trends within contemporary memorial culture: the

natural death movement and spontaneous memorialisation.

23
The natural death movement

I argue that the ‘natural death movement’ constitutes a nascent but burgeoning

paradigm of memorial culture. The movement consists of both institutions seeking to

reform death practice (e.g. The Natural Death Centre, The Humanist Association,

and the rather esoteric British School of Spiritual Knowledge), and a general shift in

sensibility that has already made inroads deep into public thinking, influencing

religious and civil institutions dealing with death.

The natural death movement is a response to both the contemporary dying

trajectory and to the influence of holistic spirituality on public thought. Tony Walter

suggests that medical advances mean that middle-aged and elderly people are likely

to be diagnosed with a terminal condition many years before death, resulting in a

prolonged and conscious dying trajectory (1994: 50). As the first chapter outlined,

the shift towards holistic spirituality has engendered an increasing emphasis on

subject-orientated service provision and the importance of authentic self-expression.

Together, these developments have influenced mainstream experiences of dying,

bereavement and memorial culture. To contextualise the influence of the natural

death movement on memorial culture, I will briefly outline its impact on the dying

process and location of authority before exploring how the movement responds to

issues of disposal, transmission, reincorporation and interpretation.

Holistic spirituality is stimulating a shift from medical to individual control over

death. This is apparent even within the NHS, as one book aimed at palliative care

professionals notes, “the holistic milieu has caught professionals in its web, for

patient-centred care… now lies at the centre of healthcare values” (Cooper, 2006:

19). Additionally, palliative care is increasingly moving outside of the conventional

healthcare system, with hospices now providing services to over two thirds of

individuals dying of cancer (NCPC, 2006: 39). Underpinning hospice care is a

“philosophy that takes as its starting point the affirmation of death as a natural part of

life. Built on that bedrock are the values of respect, choice, empowerment, holistic

24
care and compassion” (Hospice Information, 2007). The Natural Death Handbook

endorses dying at home, emphasising the ‘naturalness’ of dying and the importance

of personal choice, even suggesting that individuals may follow other mammals in

fasting to hasten the end of life (Weinrich & Speyer, 2003: 12-15).

“The natural death is not only to be freed from the medical profession but also

from the funeral trade” (Bradbury, 1999: 155). The movement wrests authority from

the civil institutions of death and memorialisation, and places it in the hands of the

dying. In addition to finding an individual path through death, the natural death

movement supports individuals in arranging their own funeral, as the plethora of

informational resources aimed more at the dying than the bereaved testifies (e.g.

Willson, 1990; Weinrich & Speyer, 2003; Francis, 2004). While the dying are

encouraged to avoid the funeral profession and create an individualised ceremony,

those entering the mainstream market also find themselves increasingly able to

express their wishes, as the role of the funeral director is gradually shifting from

‘directing’ to facilitating the involvement of the bereaved (Parsons, 1999: 142-3).

Figure two: Bidwell woodland burial ground, South Devon

25
Disposal, transmission, reincorporation and interpretation

The natural death movement does not authoritatively guide the ritual disposal of the

body, but is encouraging the development of practices outside the traditional loci of

provision. Holistic spiritualities generally hold the ‘true self’ as transcendent to

physical embodiment, leaving the choice between cremation and burial to individual

preference and pragmatic concerns (Mates & Davies, 2005: 5). However, the holistic

approach to the environment, emphasising “inter-connectedness between… human

and non-human” (Beckford, 1992: 17), leads those choosing internment towards

‘natural’ and ecologically friendly options. Consequently, woodland burial sites

(figure 2) are proliferating, with more than 170 English grounds listed in fourth edition

of The Natural Death Handbook (Weinrich & Speyer, 2003: 155-204). Similarly,

cremated remains are increasingly being removed from civil facilities to be scattered;

a practice infused with Romantic notions of returning the body to the natural

landscape, re-enchanting everyday spaces (Prendergast et al., 2006). The dead as

‘returning to nature’ also surfaces within cemetery walls, as individuals cultivate

plants on grave plots and engrave them on memorial masonry; commonly

interpreting the dead as both physically and symbolically returning to the earth

(Francis et al.: 2005).

Memorial culture also responds to the need to recall the identity of the

deceased and transmit that identity into a community of the dead. In dispelling the

afterlife and turning towards internal sources of significance, the natural death

movement resolves the tension between a theological response to death, and the

recall of the virtues of the deceased and their commitment to memory, prompting

increasingly life-centred funerary ritual (Jupp, 2001: 232). If death is ritualised

outside organised religion, humanist celebrants are available to officiate rituals

eschewing reference to supernatural forms of transcendence or an afterlife, instead

focusing on “the reality of a life which has ended” (BHA website, 2007), while funeral

liturgy within organised religion is becoming less prescriptive (Cook & Walter, 2005),

26
with pastoral resources available to guide personalisation of the authorised service

(e.g. Sheppy, 2003).

Focusing retrospectively and asserting the finality of death, non-religious

funerals fail to lay the dead to rest within a community. The decline of the parochial

churchyard and ascension of civil cemeteries catering for a geographically mobile

population means that the burial ground no longer represents a meaningful

community of the dead (Worpole, 2003: 30). One response to this has been the

proliferation of monuments within the community of the living; for example, Cooper

and Sciorra (1994) document the phenomenon of memorial murals painted on local

streets (figure 3). Another is the creation of new communities of the dead; Francis et

al. detail the popularity of children’s areas of the cemetery, where one bereaved

father suggests that “the children are playing and they are together”, while migrant

communities overwhelmingly choose to be interred either in their homeland, or in

specially designated areas of British cemeteries (2005: 20-1, 175). Online

memorialisation represents a third strategy for the creation of communities of the

dead, providing a ‘collective memorial landscape’ within which individuals are

commemorated in ‘sub-landscapes’ linking the deceased who died in the same

event, or in a similar manner (Veale, 2004).

Figure three: Memorial for Nixzmary Brown, Harlem, New York City

27
 Jupp’s (2001) third issue is one of reincorporation. While ‘traditional’

memorial culture reincorporates the dead into the lives of the bereaved through

material markers, scattered ashes resist permanent memorialisation and most

woodland burial grounds only permit the grave to be marked by a tree in keeping with

the surrounding area, denying any kind of design or inscription at the place of

internment (Worpole, 2003: 191). Ken Worpole argues that while, “for the last 2,000

years at least, one of the principle functions of burial and funeral ritual… has been to

leave, where possible, a permanent record for posterity of each individual life” it is not

enough to assume that the absence of a enduring monument is problematic (2003:

191). Indeed, Worpole sees the development positively; suggesting that reliance on

monuments damages a more resilient and tenacious form of memory building, “the

extent to which we encourage monuments to do our memory-work for us, we become

more forgetful” (2003: 190). In taking this position, Worpole echoes Pierre Nora’s

(1992) distinction between lieu de mèmoire, and a more general milieu de mèmoire

in which memory forms the fabric of every day life. However, central to Nora’s thesis

is the argument that contemporary societies do not spontaneously remember but

require commemorative vigilance – pockets of time and space set aside and

dedicated to remembrance (1996: 7). As Kieran Flanagan writes, “if memory is to be

of use, it requires some coherent focus, some capacity of re-call to enable what is of

the dead, what lies unseen, to be seen by the living” (2004: 20). Without lieu de

mèmoire to actively construct and maintain of memory, the dead are at risk of being

forgotten; denying the bereaved the ability to reincorporate the deceased into their

lives.

The natural death movement may also be constructed as problematic in

relation to Jupp’s (2001) fourth issue: the need for interpretation. One possible

answer is reincarnation, postulated by some esoteric spiritualities (e.g. Burman, date

unknown). While initial investigation suggests this to be a significantly held belief – a

recent poll reports that a quarter of the population believe in reincarnation (ORB,

2000, cited in Barley, 2006: 3) – more extensive research indicates that most
28
individuals are less than dogmatic in their belief, and that it has little effect over the

rest of their lives (Walter, 1999b). Reincarnation seems to fail to offer ontological

reassurance to most who purport to believe in the phenomenon, and is rarely cited as

a comfort in illness and bereavement (Walter & Waterhouse, 2001).

In emphasising the ‘naturalness’ of death, the movement responds to a public

consciousness “engendered by discoveries in medicine, science and public health…

leading to a belief that death is a natural and predictable event, not a Divine nor a

random one” (Jupp, 2001: 231). While it may be a fairly satisfactory answer to the

typical neo-modern death – a death predicted and accepted as the natural end to a

long life (Walter, 1994: 50) – not all deaths fit the neo-modern ideal: if an individual

dies suddenly or in youth their death is likely to be perceived as neither natural nor

predictable (Mulkay, 1993: 31). In these circumstances, holistic spirituality remains

stubbornly mute: dominant representations of the sacred today originate in and refer

to the area of individual life and existence; death does not figure in these

representations (Mellor & Shilling, 1993: 428). Further, the burden of existential

questioning has drifted from religion and the public sphere to the realm of individual

experience (Mellor, 1993: 14-17), “leaving individuals alone to construct and maintain

values to guide them through life and death, a situation prone to reality-threatening

and existential anxieties” (Mellor & Shilling, 1993: 429).

I suggest that the absence of a community of the dead, of individualised

material monuments and of comprehensive answers to existential questions renders

the memorial culture of the natural death movement an ultimately unsatisfying

answer to bereavement in contemporary Western society. As a result, other cultural

strategies are developing to fill these voids, such as the alternative communities of

the dead detailed above, and the practice of ‘spontaneous memorialisation’

responding to the abjuration of monuments.

29
Spontaneous memorialisation

‘Spontaneous memorialisation’ – creating a material marker of death by placing of

flowers, notes and small gifts often at the site of fatality – is becoming an increasingly

prevalent reaction to bereavement. Academic research into the phenomenon divides

fairly easily into studies focusing on roadside memorials marking the site of traffic

fatalities (e.g. Clark & Franzmann, 2006; Everett, 2002), and those exploring displays

of mass mourning in response to the demise of many members of the community or

one famous one (e.g. Doss, 2002; Walter, 1999a), but regardless of motivation,

spontaneous memorialisation is fairly uniform and will be treated so here. This

section outlines the practice, and suggests that it occurs primarily in response to

unexpected death, facilitating a social death sequence and reincorporation in a form

consistent with the subjective turn and holistic spirituality.

While the spontaneous memorials were observed as early as 1941, the

practice has proliferated in the last fifteen years, drawing the attention of scholars

and journalists alike (Clark & Franzmann, 2006: 580). Its derivation is unclear; Holly

Everett (2002: 20-1) ties it back to Native and Mexican-American traditions of shrine

building, but her ethnography is confined to the state of Texas, and her observations

may not necessarily be geographically transferable. Tony Walter (1991) traces the

recent proliferation of spontaneous memorialisation to the Hillsborough disaster in

April 1989, when 96 Liverpool supporters were crushed to death. Practices usually

left behind cemetery walls spilt out into public space, as flowers, football scarves and

other tributes were left at the site by the million people that visited during the first

week (figure 4). Extensive media coverage generated a national debate about the

proper way to mourn, and catalysed the formation of a new British custom (Walter,

1991), consolidated with similar scenes following death of Diana Spencer in 1997.

30
 Figure four: Tributes at Hillsborough football ground, Liverpool

Spontaneous memorials are primarily constructed as a public response to the

unanticipated, violent deaths of people who do not fit into the categories of those we

expect to die (Walter: 1999a: 236). The phenomenon is an indication that

“unpredicted violent deaths demand more than customary death practices [or the

natural death movement] are able to deliver” (Haney et al., 1997: 162). While the

generally declining efficacy of traditional memorialisation was explored in the

previous chapter, Michael Mulkay’s (1993) concept of ‘social death’ elucidates the

inadequacy of the natural death movement to satisfactorily contain unanticipated

death.

Social death is the point at which social existence and meaningful social

interaction terminates, and while linked to biological death, the two often do not

coincide (Mulkay, 1993: 32). Mulkay suggests that social death sequences are likely

to precede biological death when participants believe that death can be foreseen –

generally the case in our own society, where death is typically protracted and

confined to a well-defined segment of the population (ibid.: 42). However, some

deaths do not fit this pattern: murder, suicide and fatal accidents occur suddenly and
31
unexpectedly; by their very nature, such deaths cannot be predicted and cannot,

therefore, be prepared for in advance (ibid.). The natural death movement has no

way of ritualising these events as it focuses solely on drawing natural and social

death together: hospices seek to delay social death by ‘enabling’ the individual for as

long as possible, while fasting hastens biological death to better coincide with the

social.

Spontaneous memorials provide a focus for the social death sequence and

fulfil the need for reincorporation, allowing the dead to be reintegrated into the lives of

the living. They emerge very quickly after relatives are informed of a death, allowing

the bereaved to impart final words and say goodbye between biological death and

the funeral in an age in which the body is sequestered and rarely laid out in the home

(Walter, 1999a: 111). As suggested in the second chapter, monuments facilitate

intense interaction between the living and the dead, enabling the bereaved to

gradually disengage from social interaction with their deceased. Further, the process

of construction and maintenance of memorial assemblages assists the bereaved in

reincorporating memories of the dead into their everyday lives, retaining an

affectionate relationship, but with a different emphasis (Everett, 2002: 99).

The form taken by spontaneous memorials evidences the influence of holistic

spirituality on memorial culture. Jennifer Clark and Majella Franzmann offer this

description of roadside memorials (and figure 5):

“they usually consist of a number of separate elements, including a cross,

flowers, a plaque with names and dates, and sometimes messages of grief…

Variations are found: a bunch of flowers tied to a guide-post; silk flowers woven

in and out of a fence line for a meter or more… Adorning the memorials are the

individuals touches: clothes, cards, teddy bears and toys, photographs, a hockey

stick or a few empty beer bottles. Very often the memorials will carry a message

that would normally be found on a headstone or recited at a funeral” (2006: 580).

32
 Figure five: Roadside memorial to Ryan, A616, Cresswell

As the above description suggests, spontaneous memorials commonly juxtapose an

eclectic mix of mourning symbols, echoing the syncretism of contemporary spiritual

belief (Lyon, 2000: 43). This bricolage freely mixes references to the transcendental

and to the decidedly this-worldly realm of consumer capitalism, embodying the

holistic rejection of the sacred as a distinct and separate sphere. Similarly,

mainstream memorial masonry makes no distinction between quasi-religious

iconography and images of hobbies, as this brochure page exemplifies (figure 6).

Further, the flexibility in the choice of symbols and items which constitute a

spontaneous memorial, and a tendency to choose objects which seem to be more

meaningful to the mourner than to the deceased (Haney et al., 1997), corresponds to

the emphasis holistic spirituality places on finding individual and subjectively

satisfying paths through life and life crises.

While the natural death movement shifts authority to the dying, spontaneous

memorialisation epitomises a concordant transferral to the bereaved, evident in the

difficulty local authorities face when attempting to remove unauthorised memorials.

Guidelines published by local highway bodies indicate acknowledgement of the need

33
to tread carefully and respect the wishes of the bereaved where possible 6: space that

usually falls cleanly under local authority jurisdiction suddenly does not. A similar

tension is palpable within the boundaries of the churchyard. Here the struggle is

played out in the realm of the visual; the Council for the Care of Churches (2001, 23-

32) seeks to retain the predominance of Christian imagery engraved on monuments,

but recognises the authority of the bereaved and refrains from issuing any formal

regulations. This hesitancy on the part of traditional sources of authority can be

attributed to a diversification of who can sanctify: a power previously accessible only

to the clergy has diffused to the bereaved. Public acceptance of this diffusion is

evident in the media reaction to local councils’ removal of roadside memorials; the

bereaved receive the majority of public sympathy – “the mourning family has the

moral authority to express their grief” (Clark & Franzmann, 2006: 587).

Spontaneous memorials are a central part of contemporary memorial culture.

However, while they facilitate the social death sequence and the reincorporation of

the deceased into the lives of the bereaved, they remain symptomatic of the vacuum

of existential answers left by receding authority of organised religion, and left unfilled

by holistic spirituality. Zygmunt Bauman suggests that “modernity undid what the

long rule of Christianity had done – rebuffed the obsession with the afterlife, focused

attention on the life ‘here and now’, redeployed life activities around different

narratives with earthly targets and values, and all-in-all attempted to diffuse the

horror of death” (1998: 64). In becoming essentially ‘anti-eschatological’ (Bauman,

1998) and avoiding confrontation with the philosophical and existential issues of

death, contemporary society and holistic spirituality do not find a coherent answer to

death, leaving individuals to subjectively syncretise remembered religious concepts,

traditional funerary imagery, life-centric consumables, and natural imagery in pursuit

of an individual solution.

6
Statements of local policy are available on most council websites. Hampshire County
Council (2006) offers a typical example.
34
Figure six: Etching designs, RGR Memorials Ltd. 2007 catalogue (p.4)

35
Conclusion

This dissertation has explored the development of contemporary forms of

memorialisation in England, tying emerging trends to the shift from organised religion

to holistic spirituality. I have suggested that the natural death movement and

spontaneous memorialisation embody a new paradigm of memorial culture, and have

drawn out salient trends within these, and within nominally traditional forms of

memorialisation. I have characterised contemporary memorial culture as: moving

towards understanding death as a ‘natural’ process, with a concordant emphasis on

discursively and symbolically returning the body to nature; moving away from

monuments and funerary liturgy reflecting on mortality and the fate of the dead,

towards a life-centred and retrospective focus; and as fragmenting the interpretation

and ritualisation of death, leaving individuals to draw on and subjectively syncretise a

diverse pool of symbolic, cultural and existential resources. Underlying and shaping

these permutations is the diffusion of authority from religious and bureaucratic

sources to the dying and the bereaved.

I have argued that the death of an individual in contemporary society is

particularly problematic, as it raises issues which organised religion no longer has the

authority to answer, yet which do not find a satisfactory response in the natural death

movement. Consequently, alternative cultural strategies have developed to resolve

these issues – innovatory communities of the dead; and spontaneous memorials

which arguably function to reincorporate the dead into the lives of the bereaved.

However, I contend that contemporary memorialisation has not developed an

adequate response to existential questions, which fail to find resolution in

contemporary memorial culture, potentially threatening ontological security, and

36
perhaps explaining the slower drift towards civil ceremonies for death than for

marriage7.

This dissertation has raised a number of issues warranting further research.

The arguments outlined in the above paragraph could be tested and potentially

strengthened with sensitively conducted interviews with funeral participants,

systematic textual analysis and ethnographic research. Further, the diffusion of the

authority to sanctify space has implications for local government policy, and more

detailed exploration of publicly situated memorials may be pertinent in anticipation of

a potential increase in the number of such structures. It would also be interesting to

explore the impact of growing environmental conciousness on shaping contemporary

memorial culture and the popularity of the natural death movement.

7
The percentage of weddings conducted within a religious service in England and Wales is
steadily declining; in 2003 the figure stood at 32% (Barley, 2006: 16)
37
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Appendix 1
[Questions sent to interviewees]

I am interested in how the shift from organised religion to individualised spirituality

has impacted on the way in which people memorialise their dead. While funerary
ritual is under control of the church, the form of memorialisation is to some extent
prescribed, but in choosing to mark death with explicitly secular ritual, individuals
have much more freedom in deciding upon the form of memorialisation.

‘monument’ here refers to any material structure which provides a focus for
mourning. The forms can be diverse: flowers, park benches, tombstones, murals…

1) In what way do civil ceremonies differ from ‘traditional’ religious funerals?

2) How often, if ever, do individuals choosing ‘alternative’ funerary ritual and/or

monuments also have a religious ceremony or stone set in a space dedicated to the
dead (i.e. a cemetery etc.) ?

3) To what extent does traditional religious culture influence ‘alternative’ funerary

ritual and/or monuments? (e.g. incorporation of concepts/symbols etc.)

4) What needs (if any) would you suggest visual monuments to the dead fulfil for the
bereaved?

5) How do the bereaved interact with monuments?

6) Are alternative funerary rituals/monuments more likely to be sought at certain

times of life (e.g. if the deceased is young/has surviving parents/has young
children….), or if death occurs in a certain way (e.g. sudden/prolonged/violent)?

7) Who decides on the form of ritual/monument? (e.g. deceased/family/funeral

company…)

8) Have you noticed any developing trends in memorialisation?

Thank-you!

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