Secularization and the Modern History of Funerary Culture in Europe: Conflict and Market Competition Around Death, Burial and Cremation
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 standa...
| Published in: | Trajecta |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Amsterdam University Press
[2019]
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| In: |
Trajecta
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| IxTheo Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion KBA Western Europe TJ Modern history TK Recent history |
| Further subjects: | B
Interment
B Belgium B Modernization (Social science) B Religious Studies B Europe B Secularization B Economic Competition B funerary culture B Death |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | 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. |
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| ISSN: | 2665-9484 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Trajecta
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5117/TRA2019.2.002.DESP |