Abstract
Cemeteries have been viewed in opposed ways as ritual spaces that either mirror society or present an idealized model of society. In this article, we propose an analysis of cemeteries as ritual spaces, focused on the case study of municipal cemetery Tongerseweg in Maastricht, among the most important monumental cemeteries still in active use in The Netherlands today. Drawing on historical as well as interview material, spatial and ritual studies, the authors argue for a new “Arena Model” to understand cemeteries as dynamic ritual spaces. Cemeteries do not only form an ensemble of ritual spaces that are reliant on pre-existing communities, they also evoke, produce and maintain communities. Codeterminants are the physical layout and a wide range of ritual markers that variously underscore, mitigate or even contradict the communities created by the spatial layout. Important actors pertain to municipal politics and administration as well as the users, their respective allies and service providers. The article further analyses the wide range of competing values that help to shape a cycle of cocreating plural ritual spaces as well as communities.
Highlights
Theme and ApproachThe chance encounter related in the opening vignette has formed the basso continuo of our work on Cemetery Tongerseweg in Maastricht
A highly engaged visitor to the cemetery—during our conversation, the man relates that he occasionally fulfils volunteer tasks in the cemetery such as guiding around other visitors, and he sports a small container with a rosary which he regularly uses for prayers at the grave of his grandparents—feels that the cemetery consists of distinct spaces that seem to belong to identifiable groups
Even if the cemetery section to which our interlocutor refers may have become over the years the resting place of members of many more minority groups and may have lost its sharp edge of anticlericalism vis-à-vis a majoritarian Roman Catholicism, there still seem to linger the long shadows of memory, tradition and so forth, that define the atmosphere, the character of a cemetery section and make the section the rightful ritual space for some and out of bounds for others
Summary
A ritual space understood uses and actualizes what can be referred to as ritual space “in potentiality”—a spatial structure that defines certain actions as mandatory, optional, transgressive and so forth Ritual space in the latter sense is the result of historical processes, the sedimentation of past practices, memories and traditions; it is at least in part the result of distinctive ritual acts in the past. It already encapsulated ideas later developed by Henri Lefebvre and others: The idealist principle that space is our conception, or more precisely, that it comes into being through our synthetic activity with which we give form to sensory material, is specified here in such a way that the formation of space which we call a boundary is a sociological function Once it has become a spatial and sensory object that we inscribe into nature independently of its sociological and practical sense, this produces strong repercussions on the consciousness of the relationship of the parties. The methods we have employed range from in situ observations and interviews to the historical “mapping” of cemetery sections, archival and literature research, and the analysis of visual materials.
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