Consolationscapes in the Face of Loss: Grief and Consolation in Space and Time

223 Pages·2018·7.155 MB·English

by  Christoph Jedan (editor), Avril Maddrell (editor), Eric Venbrux (editor)

Consolationscapes in the Face of Loss
Human beings are grieving animals. ‘Consolation’, or an attempt to assuage
grief, is an age-old response to losswhich has various expressions in different
culturalcontexts.Overthepastcentury,consolationhasdroppedofftheWest’s
cultural radar. The contributions to this volume highlight this neglect of con-
solation in popular and academic discourses and explore the usefulness of the
conceptofconsolationforanalysingspatio-temporalconstellations.
Consolationscapes in the Face of Loss brings together scholars from geo-
graphy, philosophy, history, anthropology and religious studies. The chapters
use spatial and conceptual mappings of grief and consolation to analyse a
rangeofspacesandphenomenaaroundgrief,bereavementandremembrance,
comfort and resilience, including battlefield memorials, crematoria, grave-
yards and natural burial sites in Europe. Authors shift the discussion beyond
the Global North by including responses to traumatic grief in post-conflict
African societies, as well as Australian Aboriginal traditions of ritual
consolation.
The book focuses on the relationship between space/place and consolation.
In so doing, it offers a new lens for research on death, grief and bereavement.
It offers new insights for students and researchers interrogating contemporary
bereavement, as well as those interested in meaning-making, emerging socio-
cultural practices and their role in personal and collective resilience.
Christoph Jedan is Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at the
University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
Avril Maddrell is Professor of Social and Cultural Geography at the Uni-
versity of Reading, UK.
EricVenbruxisProfessorofComparativeReligionandDirectoroftheCentre
for Thanatology at Radboud University, the Netherlands.
Routledge Studies in Human Geography
Thisseries provides aforum for innovative,vibrant, andcriticaldebatewithin
Human Geography. Titles will reflect the wealth of research which is taking
place in this diverse and ever-expanding field. Contributions will be drawn
from the main sub-disciplines and from innovative areas of work which have
no particular sub-disciplinary allegiances.
Living with the Sea
Knowledge, Awareness and Action
Edited by Mike Brown and Kimberley Peters
Time Geography in the Global Context
An Anthology
Edited by Kajsa Ellegård
Consolationscapes in the Face of Loss
Grief and Consolation in Space and Time
Edited by Christoph Jedan, Avril Maddrell and Eric Venbrux
The Crisis of Global Youth Unemployment
Edited by Tamar Mayer, Sujata Moorti and Jamie K. McCallum
Time Geography
Kajsa Ellegård
British Migration
Globalisation, Transnational Identities and Multiculturalism
Edited by Katie Walsh and Pauline Leonard
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routle-
dge-Studies-in-Human-Geography/book-series/SE0514
Consolationscapes in the Face
of Loss
Grief and Consolation in Space and Time
Edited by
Christoph Jedan, Avril Maddrell and
Eric Venbrux
Firstpublished2019
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Contents
List of illustrations ix
Notes on contributors x
Foreword xiii
Preface xv
Introduction: From deathscapes to consolationscapes: spaces,
practices and experiences of consolation 1
CHRISTOPHJEDAN,AVRILMADDRELLANDERICVENBRUX
PARTI
Reviving consolation 15
1 What is consolation? Towards a new conceptual framework 17
CHRISTOPHJEDAN
2 Bittersweet: Mapping grief and consolation through the lens of
deceased organ donation 47
AVRILMADDRELL
PARTII
European constellations 61
3 Consolation and the ‘poetics’ of the soil in ‘natural burial’sites 63
ALBERTINANUGTEREN
4 The crematorium as a ritual and musical consolationscape 79
MARTINJ.M.HOONDERT
5 Emotional landscapes: Battlefield memorials to seventeenth-
century Civil War conflicts in England and Scotland 92
DOLLYMACKINNON
viii Contents
6 Danish churchyards as consolationscapes 110
ANNEKJÆRSGAARD
PARTIII
Beyond the Global North 127
7 Moving through the land: Consolation and space in Tiwi
Aboriginal death rituals 129
ERICVENBRUX
8 Rituals, healing and consolation in post-conflict environments:
The case of the Matabeleland Massacre in Zimbabwe 150
JORAMTARUSARIRA
9 Love the dead, fear the dead: Creating consolationscapes in post-
war northern Uganda 166
SOPHIESEEBACH
10 ‘It’s God’s will’: Consolation and religious meaning-making after
a family death in urban Senegal 181
RUTHEVANS,SOPHIEBOWLBY,JANERIBBENSMCCARTHY,
JOSÉPHINEWOUANGOANDFATOUKÉBÉ
Conclusion: Analysing consolationscapes 198
CHRISTOPHJEDAN
Index 202
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 The Four-Axis Model of Consolation 35
1.2 Grave of the Unknown Warrior (Westminster Abbey, London,
1920) 37
1.3 Memorial to those who diedwithout friends or family
(Selwerderhof, Groningen) 38
1.4 Detail of the façade of the Celsus Library, Ephesus 39
1.5 Details of contemporarygrave inscriptions 40
2.1 Mapping Grief: a conceptual framework for understanding the
spatialities of death, dying, bereavement, remembrance and
consolation 50
2.2 Overlapping spaces of grief and consolation at a given time 51
2.3 Example of the Manx symbol and micro-memorials in the Organ
Donation Memorial Garden, Noble’s Hospital, Isle of Man 55
4.1 Overlapping physical, ritual and musical places 83
5.1 Naseby Memorial, 1823 102
5.2 Naseby Memorial, 1936 103
6.1 Askov Kirkegård, 2014 112
6.2 The Moravian graveyard ‘God’s Acre’ in Christiansfeld 116
Tables
1.1 Three strands of consolation 22
10.1 Five Narratives of relative’s illness and/or death 185