On Friday 11th September, Sociology’s Associate Professor Ruth McManus e-presented the paper “Sustainable Dead: Seeds of Cultural syncretism in body disposal“ at the Death and Culture III conference hosted by St. John York, UK.
Sharing the stage with contributors from Norway and Japan, the paper explores how new forms of, and attitudes to, bodily disposal are emerging.
It takes the widespread cultural shift toward sustainability and charts how this is taking shape in the tangible world of cemetery development in New Zealand.
As land and resources become scare and sustainability seeks to shift from rhetoric to practice, new sites and forms of interment are being mooted, but must negotiate existing traditions and conservatism in ways that can allow for cultural departures and syncretism.
This paper details ways in which independent outfits (a church, a nurse, a quarry business and architects) are emerging as pioneers of sustainable body disposal in New Zealand.
