Burial ground zero: the crisis facing Sydney’s cemeteries

Dr Hannah Gould spoke to the Guardian about the crisis of space affecting Sydney’s cemeteries.

From the article:

Gould compares the situation to climate change.

“It’s a slow moving crisis, and it’s hard to communicate exactly why it’s a problem … until all of a sudden we’ve got a situation where it’s here.”

Culturally, socially and physically “people are being pushed further and further away from the dead”.

“At the end of the day, cemeteries are public infrastructure like libraries and swimming pools, they need to meet the public’s best interests,” Gould says.

“When someone we love dies, the availability of cemetery space becomes really important. But if you don’t have that connection, people don’t think about the rights of the dead. They’re an unknown, anonymous monolith. And we don’t like the idea of giving space to them.”

For more information, read the full story here.

The disruption and regeneration of death during the Covid-19 pandemic

Call for Papers: Special Issue for Anthropology Quarterly

Anthropology has long framed death as a crisis, both within an individual’s life trajectory and for the existential continuity of the community. In the tradition of scholarship following Hertz (1960), mortuary and funerary rituals are framed as a site of collective action mounted in response to crisis. They are transformative and curative in their ability to shepherd the dead into new worlds or remake them into new kinds of beings; to provide psychological comfort to the bereaved; and to stitch back together social worlds in the absence of the dead. The performance of religious rituals, production of memorial goods, and speaking of “words against death” (Davies 1998), across multiple generations, effectively locates the deceased within a community and a cosmos. 

But what happens when death rituals themselves face crisis? 

Over the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic has not only threatened human life and livelihoods, it has disrupted and radically reshaped experiences of dying, body disposal, grief, and memorialization around the world. With its virulent growth, Covid-19 has strained, and in some cases overwhelmed, the infrastructure and human resources in place for handling the dead, as illustrated by news coverage of overflowing morgues, crematoria running throughout the night, and mass graves. Social distancing regulations have impeded rites of washing and dressing the dead, restricted attendance at funerals, and limited cemetery visitation. 

The implications of these changes are still emerging, but popular media and industry voices point to their potentially devastating consequences. At the same time, communities around the world have responded to Covid-19-related restrictions with great creative energies, generating new ritual practices and new applications of technology. These innovations are not universal, but respond to particular religious contexts and cultural desires around death. 

Anthropologists recognize the capacity of death rites to transform bodies, souls, and social relations, but they have generally been less attentive to what happens when death ritual itself is disrupted or how it is transformed (see Simpson 2018). Nor has anthropology substantively engaged with the experiences of those carrying out the labors of contemporary death care (but see Arnold et al. 2018; Howarth 1996; Suzuki 2000). 

Contributions to this Special Issue will examine how disruptions to practices around death brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic challenge, extend, or transform anthropological understandings of death ritual and its place in uncertain times. Contributors will draw on original ethnographic research conducted with death care workers, religious communities, and mourners in diverse locations around the world. They will address questions including, but not limited to, the following: 

• What are the impacts (emotional, financial, etc.) of the disruption to death ritual during the pandemic? Who feels these impacts? Who is shielded from them? 
• What elements of funerary rituals are considered more critical or essential to retain or reproduce during Covid-19?
• How do virtual/online/digital technologies transform the funeral service? What do these technologies allow, restrict, and/or change? 
• What makes a new or modified funeral rite meaningful or efficacious? Who decides this and what happens when people disagree? 
• How is the temporality of the funeral and the expected mourning processes impacted by the pandemic? 
• What is the role of the dead body in death rites during Covid-19? Who cares for bodies?  
• How is the work of the anthropologist challenged by the conditions of pandemics? What are the ethical, methodological, or theoretical concerns that arise? 

Contributions 

This Special Issue will include a maximum of five full-length articles (<10,500 words). 

Given the limited number of the contributions, scholars are encouraged to write collaboratively in teams, as multiple submissions on a single field location are unlikely to be accepted. Scholars with non-English language backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply and will be given special support, including opportunities to co-author. 

Additional submissions of diverse formats, including ‘Social Thought and Commentary’ (<8000 words), Photo Essays (10 images and 3,000-6,000 words), and book reviews (1000-2000 words) will also be considered. Book reviews on topics related to death are especially encouraged from ECA and graduate students. 

See the Journal’s Submission Guidelines for more information on formats. 

To apply, please submit the following to hannah.gould@unimelb.edu.au by March 1st 2021: 

1.     Authors names, email addresses, and affiliations 

2.     An abstract of 300-500 words 

A CV may also be requested. 

First drafts will be due October 31^st 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Hannah Gould is ARC Research Fellow with the DeathTech Research Team at the University of Melbourne and President of the Australian Death Studies Society. Her scholarship is concerned with the material and sensory dimensions of death and disposal, from alternative body disposal practice to minimalism. During 2020, she led the Remote, Restricted, and Redesigned research project, investigating the impact of Covid-19 on Australia’s death care industry. 

Tamara Kohn is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Melbourne. She has conducted fieldwork in Scotland, Nepal, US, and Japan. Research interests include humanistic anthropology, communities of practice, the body and senses, prison lives, death studies, and research methods and ethics.  She is part of the DeathTech Research Team, studying death, commemoration, and new technologies of disposal and interment. Recent co-authored books from the team include Kohn et al (eds) 2019 Residues of Death (Routledge), and Arnold et al 2018 Death and Digital Media (Routledge).  

Art, Death and Disposal: artist open call announcement

DeathTech’s open call to artists received 34 innovative and thoughtful proposals – thank you to all of those who so generously responded to the call.

We are excited to announce the following artists have been commissioned from the shortlist, and the team is looking forward to working with all: 

Georgia Banks

https://www.georgiabanks.info/work

Catherine Bell 

Farnaz Dadfar 

https://farnazdadfar.com

Eric Jong 

http://www.ericjong.com.au/art

Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse 

https://ecologicalgyretheory.com/About

Laura Woodward 

http://www.laurawoodward.com.au

Mystifying Melbourne: Anthropologist Dr Hannah Gould On The DeathTech Research of bringing new life to Cemeteries

Aisha from RRR Radio chats with Melbourne University anthropologist Dr Hannah Gould about the DeathTech research of bringing new life to cemeteries. They discuss augmented realities, QR codes on gravestones, and eco-friendly burials. 

Listen to the full programme here

Digging Deep into Death Technology on Studio 10

Dr Hannah Gould spoke to Studio 10 about new and emerging alternatives to burial and cremation. “Let’s talk about death!”

The segment aired on Wednesday the 21st of October. Watch it on 10play.com.au or Facebook.

How technology is changing the way we grieve

This week, several members of the DeathTech Research Team were featured in the ABC Radio National programme, God Forbid. Listen here.

Is it possible to be biologically dead, but socially alive? What would that entail? On God Forbid, James and panel find out more about the digital afterlife. 

In this episode: 

Ever logged into Facebook and received a notification about someone – or from someone – who has died? It’s more common than you may think, and it’s only going to happen more. 

We now have the technology to create online avatars that can imitate a deceased person’s speech and mannerisms, based off their digital footprint. It’s a technology that raises questions about the boarders between the living and the dead. 

Across culture and religion, rituals for grief and mourning vary greatly. Is it possible to translate these rituals to the online world? Why or why not?

Guests: 

Dr Hannah Gould is a cultural anthropologist and ARC Research Fellow with ‘The DeathTech Research Team’ at the University of Melbourne. She just completed her doctoral thesis on the transforming memorial culture of Japan. She now researches high-tech death – and how the current COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way we deal with dead people.

Rev Dr Robyn Whitaker is a Uniting Church minister and Senior Lecturer in New Testament studies at Pilgrim theological college in the University of Divinity. Her academic specialty is end of world apocalyptic studies. She got her doctorate from the University of Chicago and was a Postdoctoral fellow at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. 

OPEN CALL: Art, Death and Disposal

During a time of rapid change and global crisis, the interdisciplinary DeathTech team at the University of Melbourne is researching the intersection of death, technology and society. We are exploring practices used to dispose of the deceased, from burial and cremation to newly emerging techniques and designs for the treatment of the dead, for example high-rise cemeteries, water cremation and body composting.

We invite up to five artists to join this collaborative research project, to produce innovative new work on death and disposal for exhibition in Melbourne in July 2021. Specifically, work is invited that responds to our central question: 

How might disposal of the deceased be designed in the 21st century? 

Works in any media are encouraged, including digital video and/or photography, sculpture, textiles, drawing, and installation.

Up to five artists will each receive an award of $2,000 AUD. Their work will feature in a dedicated exhibition and catalogue. Their work will be selected by a panel comprising: 

• Simone Slee, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne; 
• Edward Colless, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, and Editor Art + Australia; 
• Elizabeth Hallam, University of Oxford; 
• Tamara Kohn, University of Melbourne, 
• Michael Arnold, University of Melbourne.

Applications should be submitted by 31 July 2020, 12 midnight [AEST]

Further information

Artists are invited to produce new work in collaboration with the DeathTech’s research project Disposal of the dead: beyond burial and cremation. 

This research – ever more pressing at the current time of unprecedented global challenge with the effects of Covid-19 – focuses on emerging technologies of disposal in the context of social, cultural and environmental issues, institutional responses, public discourses, personal ethics, and worldviews. It explores innovations in body disposal technologies, their potentials and limitations, and their wider socio-cultural impacts, from the perspectives of designers, death workers and their industries, and wider cultural and religious communities. To see more about this research please see the link provided below.

The DeathTech team invites applications from artists to create work that is integral to this project, its key themes and concerns; the artists’ work will inform the research, as will public responses to the exhibition. The aim is for artists to engage with the team’s research, and produce work that explores significant aspects of death and the technologies that surround bodies of the deceased. 

So we invite artists to respond to the question: How might disposal of the deceased be designed in the 21st century? 

Art works might, for example, address issues of design, sensory experience, social response, and memory-making in relation to burial, cremation, and/or emerging and future alternatives to these practices.  

Five artists or artists’ collectives will be selected through this open call. We encourage proposals that are experimental, and are excited to work with artists in any area of practice including design, research-based artwork, and public art. The successful artists will:

• work collaboratively with the DeathTech team
• create work that can be displayed effectively at the project’s exhibition venue; each artist will have exhibition space of up to approx. 18m x 4m wall space or 66 meter square floor space (to be confirmed during the development of the exhibition: works need to be responsive to the site)
• have their work featured in the exhibition’s dedicated catalogue
• have the opportunity to offer their work for sale at the exhibition
• be invited to participate in associated events at the exhibition

Proposals in any media will be considered including: digital video and/or photography, work that can be projected and/or suspended, sculpture, drawing, and interactive installation. As the artists appointed will collaborate with the DeathTech team, and make work that is responsive to the possibilities and constraints of the exhibition venue, artists should be based in, or temporarily residing in Melbourne.

For further information please contact Prof Michael Arnold (mvarnold@unimelb.edu.au) and Dr Elizabeth Hallam (elizabeth.hallam@anthro.ox.ac.uk)

Proposals should include: 

1. A description of the proposed work (max. 1000 words, PDF), including indication of how it responds to the research question: How might disposal of the deceased be designed in the 21st century? 
2. Ten images to support the proposal. These can be a combination of images of existing works or proposals for new works (individually saved at 72-dpi; max. 30 x 30cm, JPEG or PDF). Artists working in video formats should also send examples, up to five minutes of video (max. of 50MB combined attachments or a link to a YouTube or Vimeo account).
3. A current CV (max. 3 pages, PDF)

Please ensure that all of the files you send have a file name using the artist’s name.

Proposals should be emailed as a compressed or archived file (ZIP) to  Prof Michael Arnold (mvarnold@unimelb.edu.au) and Dr Elizabeth Hallam (elizabeth.hallam@anthro.ox.ac.uk)

Key dates: 

• Applications open: 20 June 2020
• Applications close: 31 July 2020, 12 midnight [AEST]
• Applicants will be informed of interview dates in July and the outcome of their application by 31 August 2020.