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This thesis explores the historical and contemporary cultural politics of funeral and body disposal among Indian and Chinese residents of Great Britain. The sanitation episteme launched in Britain during the eighteenth-century resulted in new systems for governing things deemed to be polluting or a threat to human health. This included the corpse/dead body and its bodily remains governed by an all-embracing state technique that I call ‘necropower’. Inspired by a Foucauldian approach to biopower, I examine how the governing of the dead is implicated in the formation of state power over non-Abrahamic ethnic groups. More specifically, in this thesis I analyze how the funeral and disposal practices of two ethnic minorities in the UK have been and are governed by the contours of state necropower. I argue that these bodies became the quintessential matter out of place in a state-regulated episteme. Beginning with funerary practices they have historically been deemed polluted and subject to state-based sanitary order, and they have emerged today through a new environmental and sanitary episteme inside a necroregime of power that is mediated by industry professionals. Drawing upon documented historical and contemporary material from the nineteenth to twenty-first century, interviews with state officials, professionals from the Death Care Industry, and Indian and Chinese minorities in Great Britain, I elaborate the various ways that these minorities seek to respond to, negotiate, and avoid expectations and regulations with respect to body and remain disposal.

Previous historical and cultural geographic studies of the cemetery suggest that gravemarkers are surrogates for ethnicity and cultural assimilation. While studies of this type among single ethnic groups are common, examination of the multiethnic cemetery has largely been ignored. This study focuses on the necrogeography (regional burial practices) of the Melungeons, an understudied and underrepresented minority group. Their diverse ancestry purportedly includes a mixture of European, Native American, and African heritage. They have settled primarily in the Central Appalachian region, and more specifically within Hancock County, Tennessee. Their traditional burial practices include the construction of a unique gravehouse. I conducted personal interviews with Melungeons, religious leaders, and cemetery workers to determine the social meanings attached to these unique gravemarkers. I inspected 116 cemeteries located within Hancock County. A Melungeon Burial Index (MBI) was calculated based on the number and type of gravemarkers in individual cemeteries. The MBI acts a cultural inventory to measure varying degrees of Melungeon burial assimilation. Next, I interpreted the spatial patterns of assimilation to describe qualities of material cultural diffusion in the area. My findings show that traditional gravehouses are gradually being abandoned by the residents and over 93% of cemeteries exhibit complete burial assimilation. This suggests that gravehouse construction, a material and cultural practice of a U.S. minority group, has ended. / Master of Science

This dissertation is focused on changes in burial culture in the modern and post-modern era resulting from the introduction of cremation as a new part of burial practices in Western countries. Its aim is to analyze changes in burial culture in the context of social and political developments and through their physical effects on the landscape. In order to evaluate contemporary burial culture in the Western world, the main cause of changes in burial culture was first separately analyzed as a phenomenon that appeared (the conditions for the origins of cremation) and expanded in geographical space (the circumstances under which cremation was adapted in Western countries). The diffusion of innovations theory is used, which is capable of describing and interpreting the process of introducing cremation in its modern form. In the second phase of research, specific manifestations of changes in burial culture caused by the introduction of cremation are examined based on case studies conducted in the field. In the following part of the dissertation findings are generalized, and how the perception and function of cemeteries have changed due to the influence of changes in burial culture and how the significance of the concept of the deathscape - landscapes and places whose appearance and relationships are...

<p>This thesis is aiming to describe and understand the access to and evolvement of necral land (burial and crematory grounds) in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania and one of the most rapid growing cities in Africa. The study is based on field work conducted in Kinondoni District during the spring of 2010. It could partly be described as intensive research, because it is done like a pioneer study, trying to describe and understand a phenomena; not so much trying to find out how widespread the phenomena is. The data was primarily produced through interviews with persons representing different actors. The result from the field study is that even if there are differences in costs and needs for permits to access the land, it seems like there are ways for everyone to bury or cremate a dead body. One common way of manage costs is to collect financial contributions from friends, family and neighbours. The problem however is the evolvement, where centrally located burial grounds are considered full but still used and the cemetery established by the municipality outside the centre is not used by city dwellers, because of the lack of information and the transportation cost.</p>

This thesis is aiming to describe and understand the access to and evolvement of necral land (burial and crematory grounds) in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania and one of the most rapid growing cities in Africa. The study is based on field work conducted in Kinondoni District during the spring of 2010. It could partly be described as intensive research, because it is done like a pioneer study, trying to describe and understand a phenomena; not so much trying to find out how widespread the phenomena is. The data was primarily produced through interviews with persons representing different actors. The result from the field study is that even if there are differences in costs and needs for permits to access the land, it seems like there are ways for everyone to bury or cremate a dead body. One common way of manage costs is to collect financial contributions from friends, family and neighbours. The problem however is the evolvement, where centrally located burial grounds are considered full but still used and the cemetery established by the municipality outside the centre is not used by city dwellers, because of the lack of information and the transportation cost.

No description available.