Materialising Absence

Abstract

How death manifests itself within the western social world is the primary focus of this collection which takes us into hospitals, hospices, residential homes for older adults, funeral directors’ premises, coroners’ courts, cemeteries and burial grounds, as well as less obviously death-related landscapes such as roadside memorials and informal ash-scattering sites. We conclude with a visit to the more metaphorical terrains within which deities and spirits are imagined to reside, and here we consider beliefs and practices in more traditional as well as western societies.