DeathTech Research Team
The DeathTech Research Team is a group of anthropologists, social scientists and human-computer interaction specialists based at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. The team have been studying questions at the intersection of death, technology, and society for more than a decade.
Research Projects
The DeathTech Research Team is currently undertaking two major projects:
- Disposal of the Dead: Beyond Burial and Cremation investigates emerging alternatives to and elaborations upon traditional methods of body disposal. Disposal of the Dead is a three-year project funded by the Australian Research Council.
- The Future Cemetery investigates the potential for new technologies to enhance the public’s experience of the cemetery. The Future Cemetery is a three-year project funded by the Australian Research Council along with the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust as Linkage Partner.
Additionally, the team is currently undertaking a rapid-response research project on Remote, Restricted and Redesigned: Memorialisation practices and the COVID-19 pandemic, supported by seed funding from The University of Melbourne.
Publications
To date, the DeathTech Research Team has produced two books (Death and Digital Media and Residues of Death: Disposal Reconfigured) and numerous other academic and popular publications that explore how death, commemoration and mourning have begun to change in response to the shifting technological and social pressures of the 21st century.
Latest News
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MMEETS COMFORT IN THE UNCOMFORTABLE
Death is often an uncomfortable topic, but as an inevitable part of life, it’s something that we should seek to find comfort with. Bone is intrinsically linked to the concept of life and of death, and this event seeks to explore how we can transform it from simply a material, into a concept that collectively connects us. Join us at MPavilion with …
16 February 2023 -
Death Futures Seminar Series by DeathTech
From March to November 2021, DeathTech hosted a seminar series called Death Futures for the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT). All five seminars are now available to watch on the GMCT website. The seminars covered topics including sustainable alternatives to burial and cremation, the role of cemeteries as recreational public spaces, the use of digital technology in the cemetery sector, and high-tech …
15 December 2022 -
Augmented cemetery tours and smart graves – ABC Radio National
Dr Fraser Allison spoke to ABC Radio National's Life Matters program about the proliferation of digital technology at cemeteries. The episode covered augmented reality tours, in-coffin audio systems and digitally enhanced gravestones. Listen to the segment on the Radio National website or on the Life Matters podcast for 14 December 2022).
15 December 2022 -
Dying in the Digital Age: Are you prepared?
In this webinar hosted by the International Collaborative for Best Care for the Dying Person, Dr Bjorn Nansen and Amara Nwosu discussed the practicalities of death and dying in an increasingly digital world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96uMDdLphQU
11 September 2022 -
Melbourne Conversations: Deconstructing Human Voices
DeathTech's Dr Fraser Allison joined filmmaker/artist Daz Chandler and design researcher Dr Niels Wouters at ACMI X to talk about voice technology. The wide-ranging conversation included a discussion of the long history of attempts to use new technologies to listen and speak to the dead. Watch a recording of this conversation. Event description: What happens when your voice is uploaded to the internet? …
11 August 2022 -
Welcome to DeathTech: navigating the business of death online – ABC Radio National
Dr Bjørn Nansen appeared on ABC Radio National's Life Matters program on 24th May to discuss the online services that aim to support people in dealing with death. It may sound very biblical, but in the midst of life, we are in death. Still, death can be a difficult topic to broach. Today though, online spaces are providing more comfortable places …
26 May 2022 -
Life Matters: Who are funerals for?
DeathTech member, Dr Hannah Gould, spoke with the Radio National Life Matters team about the changing nature of funerals in Australia, and what happens when conflicts emerge between the wishes of the deceased and the bereaved. The program features a number of wonderful stories from members of the public calling in, who describe how they are "doing death differently" …
1 April 2022 -
The Sustainable Cemetery online panel – 28 Feb
Join DeathTech's Sam Holleran and representatives from the deathcare industry for an online discussion of the ways in which sustainability can be embedded in cemeteries of the future. Date: Monday 28 Feb Time: 6.00pm AEDT Where: Zoom (link on registration) Registration: Free Presenters: James Reid – Greater Metropolitan Cemetery Trust (panel facilitator)Samuel Holleran – Researcher, University of Melbourne DeathTechAlli Coster – Design Lead, Future Built Environment, …
18 February 2022
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MMEETS COMFORT IN THE UNCOMFORTABLE
Death is often an uncomfortable topic, but as an inevitable part of life, it’s something that we should seek to find comfort with. Bone is intrinsically linked to the concept of life and of death, and this event seeks to explore how we can transform it from simply a material, into a concept that collectively connects us. Join us at MPavilion with …
16 February 2023 Events -
Death Futures Seminar Series by DeathTech
From March to November 2021, DeathTech hosted a seminar series called Death Futures for the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT). All five seminars are now available to watch on the GMCT website. The seminars covered topics including sustainable alternatives to burial and cremation, the role of cemeteries as recreational public spaces, the use of digital technology in the cemetery sector, and high-tech …
15 December 2022 Events -
Augmented cemetery tours and smart graves – ABC Radio National
Dr Fraser Allison spoke to ABC Radio National's Life Matters program about the proliferation of digital technology at cemeteries. The episode covered augmented reality tours, in-coffin audio systems and digitally enhanced gravestones. Listen to the segment on the Radio National website or on the Life Matters podcast for 14 December 2022).
15 December 2022 Allison, News -
Dying in the Digital Age: Are you prepared?
In this webinar hosted by the International Collaborative for Best Care for the Dying Person, Dr Bjorn Nansen and Amara Nwosu discussed the practicalities of death and dying in an increasingly digital world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96uMDdLphQU
11 September 2022 Nansen, Events -
Melbourne Conversations: Deconstructing Human Voices
DeathTech's Dr Fraser Allison joined filmmaker/artist Daz Chandler and design researcher Dr Niels Wouters at ACMI X to talk about voice technology. The wide-ranging conversation included a discussion of the long history of attempts to use new technologies to listen and speak to the dead. Watch a recording of this conversation. Event description: What happens when your voice is uploaded to the internet? …
11 August 2022 Allison, Events -
Welcome to DeathTech: navigating the business of death online – ABC Radio National
Dr Bjørn Nansen appeared on ABC Radio National's Life Matters program on 24th May to discuss the online services that aim to support people in dealing with death. It may sound very biblical, but in the midst of life, we are in death. Still, death can be a difficult topic to broach. Today though, online spaces are providing more comfortable places …
26 May 2022 Nansen, Podcast... -
Life Matters: Who are funerals for?
DeathTech member, Dr Hannah Gould, spoke with the Radio National Life Matters team about the changing nature of funerals in Australia, and what happens when conflicts emerge between the wishes of the deceased and the bereaved. The program features a number of wonderful stories from members of the public calling in, who describe how they are "doing death differently" …
1 April 2022 News -
The Sustainable Cemetery online panel – 28 Feb
Join DeathTech's Sam Holleran and representatives from the deathcare industry for an online discussion of the ways in which sustainability can be embedded in cemeteries of the future. Date: Monday 28 Feb Time: 6.00pm AEDT Where: Zoom (link on registration) Registration: Free Presenters: James Reid – Greater Metropolitan Cemetery Trust (panel facilitator)Samuel Holleran – Researcher, University of Melbourne DeathTechAlli Coster – Design Lead, Future Built Environment, …
18 February 2022 Events -
Events, News
Redesigning Deathcare Conference 2022 – accepting submissions -
Interview with Catherine Bell on Art, Death & Disposal – Faculty of Arts
Catherine Bell spoke with Sarah Hall of the Faculty of Arts about her work for the Art, Death & Disposal exhibition (curated by DeathTech), her visions for the future of death and body disposal, and the role that art can play in imagining that future. "I see death as a social process - one that is materialised through the act of …
17 January 2022 Art, News -
We need to rethink how we manage death-care – Pursuit
Death is a phenomenon like no other. It touches all dimensions of human experience, as a biological process and as an event of profound cultural, spiritual, economic, legal, and social significance. Despite this, we lack a comprehensive system for dealing with death that respects people’s wishes and dignity, that is sustainable from both environmental and financial perspectives, and that responds to …
17 January 2022 News -
Art, Death & Disposal exhibition (12-16 Jan)
How might disposal of the deceased be designed in the 21st century? Imagining beyond burial and cremation – in a world of rapid social, technological and environmental change – seven artists respond to this question, presenting moving and provocative new work. Catherine Bell https://suttongallery.com.au/artists/catherine-bell/Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse https://ecologicalgyretheory.com/Eric Jong https://www.ericjong.com.au/Farnaz Dadfar https://farnazdadfar.com/Georgia Banks https://www.georgiabanks.info/Laura Woodward https://www.laurawoodward.com.au/ In collaboration with DeathTech Research Team, …
3 December 2021 Events, News -
Results of The Future Cemetery Survey 2021 [Report]
The DeathTech Research Team is pleased to present the results of the Future Cemetery Survey 2021. Based on a nationally representative sample taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, this research provides a snapshot of Australians’ experiences with and attitudes towards funerals, cemeteries and technologies for the treatment and commemoration of the dead. Findings Cremation is by far the most popular choice for what …
25 November 2021 Reports, News -
Burial, cremation, or the ‘Gentle Way’? – Triple J’s Hack
Professor Michael Arnold spoke to Tamsin Rose of Triple J's Hack to discuss what's changing in the way we treat human remains: If you take the view that every step that can be taken should be taken, then one might say we should be looking for methods of disposition which are much more environmentally friendly. The full story is available on the …
17 November 2021 News -
Public webinar: What is critical and what is hidden in the time of COVID-19?
Questions of what or who is critical to managing the COVID-19 pandemic have been at the heart of media discussion, public recognition and government policy on a global scale. Such concerns – of what constitutes critical workers, material resources, public services and community responses – are being addressed and prioritised at local and national levels in different ways, even as …
1 November 2021 Events -
An Essential Service: Experiences of Australian Deathcare Workers during COVID-19 [Report]
The report, "An Essential Service" examines on the experiences of Australian deathcare workers during COVID-19.
5 September 2021 Reports, News
The DeathTech Research Team is a group of anthropologists, social scientists and human-computer interaction specialists based at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. The team have been studying questions at the intersection of death, technology, and society for more than a decade.

Michael Arnold
Professor, History and Philosophy of Science, The University of Melbourne
Michael Arnold’s on-going research activities lie at the intersection of contemporary technologies and daily life; for example, studies of digital technologies in the domestic context, online memorials and other technologies associated with death, social networking, community informatics, and ethical and normative assessments of technologies.

Tamara Kohn
Professor of Anthropology, School of Social and Political Science, The University of Melbourne
Tamara Kohn’s current research focuses on creative practice, death studies, mobility and leisure, methods and ethics, and the anthropology of the body and senses, based on fieldwork in the US, Japan and Australia.

Martin Gibbs
Professor, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne
Martin Gibbs is a member of the Human-Computer Interaction research group. Martin is currently investigating how people use a variety of interactive technologies, such as video games, community networks and mobile phones, for convivial and sociable purposes in a diverse situations (intimate strong-tie relationships, local neighbourhoods, work-based occupational communities, online computer games).
Web・ORCID

Elizabeth Hallam
Associate Professor in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, Oxford University
Elizabeth Hallam’s research and publications focus on the anthropology of the body; death and dying; material and visual cultures; human anatomy; three-dimensional models, especially in medical education; making and design; mixed-media sculpture; history and anthropology; experimental research with images and texts; fieldwork, archive and museum-based research mainly in the UK, along with recent multi-sited research begun in Australia, Singapore and the USA.
Web

Bjørn Nansen
Senior Lecturer, Media and Communications, the University of Melbourne
Bjørn Nansen’s research focuses on emerging and marginal forms of digital media use in everyday life, using a mix of ethnographic, participatory and digital methods. His current work explores changing home media infrastructures and environments, children’s mobile media and digital play practices, technologies for death and memorialising, and the digital mediation of sleep.
Web・ORCID

Samuel Holleran
PhD Student, Media and Communications, The University of Melbourne
Samuel Holleran’s PhD examines public participation in the reimagination of urban burial sites. He is also an interdisciplinary artist and writer whose work examines the power and politics imbued in urban design. In particular, he is interested in the use of everyday objects in cities, like street furniture, parks, and signage. He has worked as an art director, researcher and educator in the field of civically-engaged design with the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) in New York City and the Chair for Architecture & Urban Design at ETH-Zürich.
Web・Twitter・ORCID

Fraser Allison
Research Fellow, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne
Fraser Allison is a research fellow in the Human-Computer Interaction research group. He studies the design and user experience of technologies for leisure and commemoration, with a focus on natural user interfaces, complex user experiences and the ways in which people draw meaning from technologically mediated activities.

Hannah Gould
Melbourne Postdoctoral Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Hannah Gould is a socio-cultural anthropologist working in the areas of death, religion, and material culture. Her research is focused on how the deceased are memorialised and materialised in everyday life, with a regional focus on North-East Asia.
Industry Research Partners

Deb Ganderton (Vale)
The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust
Deb Ganderton (vale) was the CEO of The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT) from 2019 to 2022, and a leading figure in the Australian deathcare industry. GMCT manages 19 cemeteries and memorial parks across Melbourne, with two brand new sites under development on Melbourne’s urban fringe. GMCT’s 650 hectares of heritage parklands are visited by almost two million people each year.
Research Collaborators
The Future Cemetery
The contemporary Western cemetery, dedicated to the dead and their memorials, has become more than a pervasive urban landmark. It is also a central site in the emotional lives and cultural histories of local communities. However, this model is now facing crisis, driven by growing environmental concerns, maintenance costs, and an increasingly well-informed public with a complex range of desires for memorialisation.
Around the world, many cemeteries have begun adopting new technologies to improve their visitors’ experiences, reduce their facilities’ environmental footprint, and extend the personalisation of services in response to more diverse community desires. These include the potential for grave location, navigation, and tours, and for digital annotation or augmentation of interment locations. New alternatives to traditional cremation, burial, and mausoleums have also become viable, including resomation (water-based cremation) and natural burial. This project will identify and critically assess the potential of innovative technologies to enhance the public’s experience of the cemetery, diversify service offerings, and strengthen community connections, all in the context of increasingly diverse and rapidly changing social circumstances.
The Future Cemetery is a three-year project funded by the Australian Research Council (grant no: LP180100757) with the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust as Linkage Partner.
Outputs
- The Encyclopedia of Cemetery Technology
- Future Cemetery Industry Workshop 2019 Report
- Future Cemetery National Survey 2020 Report
- An Essential Service: Experiences of Australian Deathcare Workers during COVID-19
- Future Cemetery National Survey Report 2021
Disposal of the Dead: Beyond Burial and Cremation
This research project investigates innovative and scalable alternatives to body disposal, such as alkaline hydrolysis, liquid nitrogen, and other thermal processes, and innovative elaborationson burial and cremation, such as natural burial and carbon trading among crematoria at a time when there is a greater awareness of the economic and environmental costs of both burial and cremation. It considers the social, cultural and environmental issues, regulatory challenges, institutional responses, public discourses, personal ethics, and worldviews at stake in the emergence of these disposal technologies. The research asks, how do innovations in these technologies impact on consumers, industry, and broader socio-cultural and metaphysical frameworks for handling death? This project explores the practices and perspectives of designers, death workers, industry intermediaries, consumers and representatives of cultural and religious communities as they respond to, interpret and plan for changing possibilities of bodily disposal.
Disposal of the Dead is a three-year project funded by the Australian Research Council (DP: 180103148)
Remote, Restricted and Redesigned: Memorialisation practices and the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic not only represents a serious threat to human life and livelihoods, it has transformed experiences of death, grief, and memorialisation. Social distancing regulations have upended cultural and religious traditions by restricting interaction with the deceased, attendance at funerals, and visitation at cemeteries. Simultaneously, communities have found creative responses to restrictions through new rituals and uses of technology. At the heart of these disruptions and transformations are death care workers, who provide an essential service in the face of uncertainty but are often overlooked in official pandemic responses and media coverage.
This research tackles the problem of how to manage individual and communal expectations of death rites that uphold human decency and tradition, while continuing to protect death care workers under the conditions of a global pandemic and its aftermath. The team will assess the Australian response and formulate recommendations for improvement to funeral practices during and following pandemic, with a view to long-term research. Conducting this research now will ensure that the death care sector will be better equipped to deliver a safe and compassionate response during future disruptive events.
This project is funded by the Arts Collaborative Research Seed Funding Scheme at The University of Melbourne.
To take part in the survey of the death care industry for this project, please click here.
Digital Commemoration
The Internet is not just changing our social lives, it is also changing how we approach death and commemoration. The project provides an extensive analysis of contemporary digital commemoration and a detailed account of the wider social and cultural implications of these practices.
The ‘Digital Commemoration’ project brings together researchers from Anthropology, Human and Computer Interaction (HCI), Social Studies of Technology, and Media and Communications. The project will provide an extensive analysis of contemporary digital commemoration and a detailed account of the wider social and cultural implications of these practices. This research continues our previous work on digital memorialisation and the mediation of death online, which has been supported by research grants from the Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society (IBES) and the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN).
Digital Commemoration was a three-year project funded by the Australian Research Council. For more information, visit the project website.
Books
Kohn, T., Nansen, B., Gibbs, M. and van Ryn, L. (eds.). (2019) Residues of Death: Disposal Refigured. London: Routledge.
Arnold, M., Gibbs, M., Kohn, T., Meese, J. and Nansen, B. (2018) Death and Digital Media. London: Routledge.
Journal Articles
Michael Arnold, Tamara Kohn, Bjorn Nansen & Fraser Allison (2023) Representing alkaline hydrolysis: a material-semiotic analysis of an alternative to burial and cremation, Mortality, DOI: 10.1080/13576275.2023.2174838
Nansen, B., Gould, H., Arnold, M. and Gibbs, M. (2021) Media, mortality and necro-technologies: Eulogies for dead media. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211027959
Westendorp, M. and Gould, H. (2021) Re-Feminizing Death: Gender, Spirituality and Death Care in the Anthropocene. Religions 12(8):667. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080667
Gould, H., Arnold, M., Kohn, T., Nansen, B. and Gibbs, M. (2021) Robot death care: A study of funerary practice. International Journal of Cultural Studies 24(4): 603-621.
Gould, H., Arnold, M., Dupleix, T. and Kohn, T. (2021). ‘Stood to rest’: reorientating necrogeographies for the 21st century. Mortality. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2021.1878120
Nansen, B., O’Donnell, D., Arnold, M., Gibbs, M. and Kohn, T. (2019) ‘Death by Twitter’: Understanding False Death Announcements on Social Media and the Performance of Platform Cultural Capital. First Monday 24(12).
Arnold M., Nansen B., Kohn T., Gibbs M. and Gould, H. (2019) The disposition of the destitute. Parity 32(6): 22.
Gould, H., Kohn, T. and Gibbs, M. (2018) Uploading the Ancestors: Experiments with digital Buddhist altars in contemporary Japan. Death Studies 43(7): 456-465.
van Ryn, L., Meese, J., Nansen, B., Kohn, T., Arnold, M. and Gibbs, M. (2018) Managing the consumption of death and digital media: the funeral director as market intermediary. Death Studies 43(7): 446-455.
Lambert, A., Nansen, B. and Arnold, M. (2018) Algorithmic Memorial Videos: Contextualising Automated Curation. Memory Studies 11(2): 156-171.
Nansen B., Kohn, T., Arnold M., Van Ryn L. and Gibbs, M. (2017) Social Media in the Funeral Industry: On the Digitization of Grief. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 61(1): 73-89.
Meese, J., Nansen, B., Kohn, T., Arnold, M. and Gibbs, M. (2015) Posthumous Personhood and the affordances of digital media. Mortality 20(4): 408-420.
Gibbs, M., Meese, J., Arnold, M., Nansen, B. and Carter, M. (2015) #Funeral and Instagram: death, social media, and platform vernacular. Information, Communication & Society 18(3): 255-268.
Graham, C., Arnold, M., Kohn, T. and Gibbs, M. R. (2015) Gravesites and websites: a comparison of memorialisation. Visual Studies 30(1): 37-53.
Meese, J., Gibbs, M., Carter, M., Arnold, M., Nansen, B. and Kohn, T. (2015) Selfies at Funerals: Mourning and Presencing on Social Media Platforms. International Journal of Communication 9(14): 1818–1831.
Graham, C., Gibbs, M. and Aceti, L. (2013) Introduction to the Special Issue on the Death, Afterlife, and Immortality of Bodies and Data. The Information Society: An International Journal 29(3): 133–141.
Gibbs, M., Mori, M., Arnold, M. and Kohn, T. (2012) Tombstones, Uncanny Monuments and Epic Quests: Memorials in World of Warcraft. Game Studies 12(1).
Book Chapters
Gould, H. (2022) Modern Minimalism and the Magical Buddhist Art of Disposal. Buddhism and Waste: The Excess, Discard, and Afterlife of Buddhist Consumption. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 53-73.
Fordyce, R., Nansen, B., Arnold, M., Kohn, T. and Gibbs, M. (2021) ‘Automating Digital Afterlives’. Disentangling: The Geographies of Digital Disconnection. Oxford University Press, pp. 115-136.
Van Ryn, L., Nansen, B. and Gibbs, M. (2019) ‘Adapt or Die’: the funeral trade show as a site of institutional anxiety. In Kohn, T., Gibbs, M., Nansen, B, and van Ryn, L (eds.). Residues of Death: Disposal Refigured. London: Routledge, pp. 37-51.
Hallam, E. and Kohn, T. (2019) Life in Death’s Residues, In Kohn, T., Gibbs, M., Nansen, B, and van Ryn, L (Eds.). Residues of Death: Disposal Refigured. London: Routledge, pp 1-16.
Arnold, M. (2019) Embracing and Distancing the Materiality of Death through Cremation, In Kohn, T., Gibbs, M., Nansen, B, and van Ryn, L (eds.). Residues of Death: Disposal Refigured. London: Routledge, pp. 124-135.
Kohn, T., Arnold, M., Gibbs, M., Meese, J. and Nansen, B. (2018) The Social Life of the Dead and the Leisured Life of the Living Online, in Leisure and Death: Lively Encounters with Risk, Death, and Dying, edited by Kaul, A, and Skinner, J, Boulder: University of Colorado Press.
van Ryn, L., Kohn, T., Nansen, B., Arnold, M. and Gibbs, M. (2017) Researching Death Online. In L. Hjorth, H. Horst, A. Galloway, & G. Bell (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography (pp. 112-120). London: Routledge
Nansen, B., Arnold, M., Gibbs, M. and Kohn, T. (2015) Remembering Zyzz: Distributed Memories on Distributed Networks. In Hajek, A., Lohmeier C. and Pentzold C. (eds.), Memory in a Mediated World: Remembrance and Reconstruction (pp. 261-280). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Nansen, B., Arnold, M., Gibbs, M. and Kohn, T. (2014) The Restless Dead in the Digital Cemetary. In Moreman, C. and Lewis, D. (eds.), Digital death: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Kohn, T., Gibbs, M., Arnold, M. and Nansen. B. (2012) Facebook and the Other: Administering to and Caring for the Dead Online. In Hage, G. (ed.), Responsibility. University of Melbourne Press, pp. 128–141.
Conference Papers
Arnold, M., Gould, H., Kohn, T., Nansen, B. and Allison, F. (2021) Cybernetic Funeral Systems. 2021 IEEE Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century (21CW), pp. 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1109/21CW48944.2021.9532545
Gibbs, M., Carter, M. and Mori, J. (2013) Vile Rat: Spontaneous Shrines in EVE Online. Foundations of Digital Games Conference (FDG’13), 15 May, Chania, Greece.
Bellamy, C., Arnold, M., Gibbs, M., Kohn, T. and Nansen, B. (2013) Mediating the digital hereafter: life beyond the timeline. Prato Community informatics Research Network (CIRN) Conference Oct 28–30 2013, Monash Centre, Prato Italy.
Gibbs, M., Carter, M., Arnold, M. & Nansen, B. (2013) Serenity Now bombs a World of Warcraft funeral: Negotiating the Morality, Reality and Taste of Online Gaming Practices. Proceedings of Internet Research 14.0: The 14th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), 23–26 October 2013, Denver, USA.
Mori, J., Gibbs, M., Arnold, M. and Nansen, B. (2012) Design Considerations for After Death: Comparing the Affordances of Three Online Platforms. Proceedings of the 24th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference, Swinburne University, November 26–30. New York: ACM Press, pp. 395–404.
Public Reports
Allison, F., Arnold, M., Gibbs, M., Gould, H., Hallam, E., Holleran, S., Kohn, T. and Nansen, B. (2021) The Future Cemetery Survey 2021 [Report].
Gould, H. and Holleran, S. (2021) An Essential Service: Experiences of Australian Deathcare Workers during COVID-19 [Report].
Allison, F., Gould, H., Arnold, M., Nansen, B., Gibbs, M. and Kohn, T. (2020) The Future Cemetery Survey 2020 [Report].
Gould, H., Allison, F., Arnold, M., Nansen, B., Gibbs, M. and Kohn, T. (2019) The Future Cemetery Workshop 2019 [Report].
van der Nagel, E., Arnold, M., Nansen, B., Gibbs, M., Kohn, T., Bellamy, C. and Clark, N. (2017) Death and the Internet: Consumer issues for planning and managing digital legacies, 2nd edn, Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, Sydney.
Bellamy, C., Arnold, M., Gibbs, M., Nansen, B. and Kohn, T. (2013) Death and the Internet: Consumer issues for planning and managing digital legacies, Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, Sydney.
Gibbs M., Bellamy C., Arnold M., Nansen B. and Kohn T. (2013) Digital registers and estate planning. Retirement and Estate Planning Bulletin 16(3): 63-68.
We are always looking for opportunities to connect with scholars, funerary industry members, designers and death activists. To get in touch, email deathtech-research@unimelb.edu.au or follow our Twitter account @DeathTechTeam.
Global Death Studies Centres
The DeathTech Research Team is one of several academic groups around the world who study death, dying and disposal of the dead. Some of their websites can be found at:
- Death Online Research Network (DORN)
- Centre for Death and Life Studies (CDALS), Durham University, UK
- Centre for Death and Society (CDAS), Bath University, UK
- Death & Culture Network (DaCNet), York University, UK
- End of Life Studies, Glasgow University, UK
- Sheffield Death Group, The University of Sheffield, UK