‘Davies and Rumble analyse natural burial and give it a spiritual re-brand through which they highlight the potentially meaningless death exemplified by conventional burial and cremation. Life-style and death-style are unified as environmental science is utilised to redefine the hitherto rotting corpse into an animate gift to nature, to fecundity, and to future generations.They challenge the very meaning of dead, challenge the church to create a new ecological litany, and challenge each of us to create our own life-death narrative. We must die to create a viable planet, but only if we utilise natural burial.'

- Ken West MBE, retired Bereavement Services Manager and author of A Guide to Natural Burial,

‘This important and original book traces and analyses the rapid rise of "natural burial" since its inception in Britain in 1993. It argues convincingly that the popularity of natural burial is associated with a distinctive mode of spirituality.'

- Professor Charles Watkins, University of Nottingham, UK,

‘Provides a brilliant and theoretically sound analysis of why this new choice next to conventional burial and cremation appeals to the British. Natural Burial is a must read for all students of comparative death studies.'

- Professor Eric Venbrux, Centre for Thanatology, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands,

From the 1990s the British developed an interest in natural burial, also known as woodland, green, or eco-logical burial. This continued a stream of British interest in funeral innovation from Victorian cemetery monuments through the birth and rise of cremation to the many things done with cremated remains. The book sets natural burial in the context of creative dealing with death, grief, mourning and the celebration of life. Ideas from sociology and anthropology combine with psychological issues and theological ideas to show how human emotions take shape and help people think of their own death as well as dealing with death of those they love. Douglas Davies and Hannah Rumble explore the variety of motivations for the appeal of natural burial, and use interviews with people using a special natural burial site created by the Church of England but open to all, to illustrate the spiritual understandings of life and death in the sacred, secular and mixed worlds of modern Britain.
Les mer
From the 1990s the British developed an interest in natural burial, also known as woodland, green, or eco-logical burial. This book offers an exploration of traditional and emerging spiritualities of life and death in light of natural burial and other innovations in bodily disposal.
Les mer
Preface; 1. Funeral Forms, Life-styles and Death-styles; 2. Varied Sites and Changing Rites; 3. Options and Motivations: What People Say; 4. Self-Gift, Soil, and Society; 5. Spirituality, Theology, Self and Sense of Place; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
Les mer
An exploration of traditional and emerging spiritualities of life and death in light of natural burial and other recent innovations in bodily disposal.
Places natural burial within the context of funeral innovation since the Victorians

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781441122964
Publisert
2012-09-27
Utgiver
Continuum Publishing Corporation
Høyde
216 mm
Bredde
138 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
192

Biografisk notat

Hannah Rumble is Research Associate at the Centre for Death and Life Studies, University of Durham, UK. She has recently completed her doctoral thesis on British natural burial provision funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Douglas Davies is Professor in the Study of Religion in the University of Durham, UK. His numerous books on death and other aspects of Religious Studies reflect his combined skills both as an Anthropologist of Religion and Theologian. His publications include Theology of Death (Continuum, 2008), Death Ritual and Belief (Continuum, 2002, Second Edition), Brief History of Death (Blackwell, 2004), Encyclopedia of Cremation (Ashgate, 2005).