The Matter of Death: Space, Place and Materiality

This stimulating and thought-provoking book is focused on the various spaces, places and material culture with which people come into contact when dealing with death. It covers the disciplinary perspectives of anthropology, history, sociology and theology, and its scope ranges across the spaces in hospitals where death occurs, to the space in which bodies are viewed after death; it also considers the political natural of memorialising activities, and the therapeutic value of visiting places of death, for example, after suicide. The chapters provide rich and current data from a large number of recent UK-based and international projects that examine various forms of death, dying and bereavement, providing insight into the different ways in which dying and bereaved people interact with the environment around them, and 'the matter' of death.