Cemeteries as Civic Spaces
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2024-04
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Melbourne Authors
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School of Culture and Communication
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PhD thesis
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Open Access
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© 2024 Samuel Holleran
Abstract
Growing cities, changing traditions, and an evolving ecological consciousness have shifted the way we view urban cemeteries. This thesis (by publication) examines cemeteries as spaces with multiple constituencies and uses: places for mourning, representations of cities in miniature, expressions of idealised nature, and open-air archives that catalogue the names of the dead and inscribe them onto the landscape. Through historical and interview-based methods, it illuminates the relationship between Australian cemeteries and surrounding communities, particularly in the ways cemetery ‘reactivation’ intersects with larger processes of urban transformation and conventions of design and aesthetic judgement.
Through an examination of the spatial and cultural shaping of Australian cemeteries, this thesis documents how these sites fit into larger infrastructural systems of deathcare and urban greenspaces, and how they are mediated by different political and social forces. The aim is to understand cemeteries’ role as civic spaces, and their embodied meaning for disparate user groups. Also of interest are the communicative tools used by cemetery volunteers and managers to considerately reshape cemetery environments. In the context of contemporary challenges—such as the rise of cremation and the densification of inner suburbs—this research emphasises the evolving nature of cemetery management and care. The assembled papers explore the shifting cultural imaginaries that shape cemeteries: as places for the interment of bodies but also as archives, infrastructure, and park-adjacent multi-use spaces.
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cemeteries, public space, greening, urban design, death, parks, Covid-19, care, memorialisation, urban gardening