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Secularization and the Modern History of Funerary Culture in Europe : Conflict and Market Competition Around Death, Burial and Cremation

Tijdschriftbijdrage - Tijdschriftartikel

This article connects the history of attitudes toward death and funerary practices in 19th- and 20th-century Europe to the ongoing discussion on secularization. It emphasizes how recent scholarship on the history of death ‐ following broader trends within religious studies ‐ has abandoned the standard modernization-narrative of secularization, and moved to view the issue through the prism of conflict and market competition. Depending on the historical context and the Church-State relationship, a conflict and/or market competition perspective can deepen our understanding of the secularization of death and burial practices. In periods of intense socio-political struggle over the role of religion in the modern polity, a conflict perspective helps to grasp the processes of secularization. Once secular forces have succeeded in breaking the grip of the churches on death and burial, a market perspective can be more useful. Both serve as alternatives to the traditional understanding of secularization as an anonymous process of modernization. An in-depth analysis of the development of a secularist funerary culture in Belgium aptly demonstrates the shift in the master variable influencing secularization ‐ from socio-political conflict to market competition.
Tijdschrift: Trajecta
ISSN: 0778-8304
Issue: 2
Volume: 28
Pagina's: 169-201
Jaar van publicatie:2019
Trefwoorden:cemeteries, death, secularisation, cremation, Secularism, 19th and 20th centuries, BELGIUM, religious history, political history, Cultural history
Toegankelijkheid:Closed