Solid and floating burial places. Ash disposal and the constituting of spaces of disposal

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study examines how ash-scattering space in public natural areas in Norway is produced. Fieldwork was conducted with 11 Norwegian bereaved people through interviews and visits to the disposal places to study the practices relating to contemporary ash disposal. The article contributes to a more systematic understanding of the spatial interactions between the bereaved and the deceased, while indicating the importance of considering the fluidity of commemorative space which facilitates for an encounter between the bereaved and the deceased. The findings reveal that the scattering of ashes undermines the traditional relation between death and place (cemeteries) and transforms the public place in natural landscapes into commemorative space. Solid places on sea, floating places by the sea and places where the floating soul appears by the sea are produced as commemorative spaces where the ashes are scattered or where a connection to the sea is likely. The data indicates that the space is created in an open-ended process where both the bereaved’s and the deceased’s relation to the ash-scattering site (or the sea) and their experiences of the cemetery institution are mutually important factors. The analysis has been inspired by Henri Lefebvre’s, Doreen Massey’s and Martina Löw’s multidimensional understandings of space as constituted relationality.