Cemetery locus as a mechanism of socio-cultural identity

Bibliographic Data

ID3003426
AuthorsA A Sautkin, Aleksandr Sautkin (0000-0002-4238-8619, Murmansk Arctic State University, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume22
Issue6
Pages661-677
Publication date2016-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Identities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-4630 • E-ISSN: 1363-0296
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13504630.2016.1175932
OpenAlexW2343466082
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited10

In cultural studies of cemetery locus there is a very important aspect of understanding the cemetery as a tool for the formation of the socio-cultural identity of living people. I adhere to the point of view that the cemetery has always produced, and continues to produce, a variety of identities. While during the pre-Modern period the cemetery was a necessary element of individual self-understanding as a member of a certain community, in the Modern era the cemetery produces more particularistic identities. Modernity generates some universal and abstract schemes of identification, and by means of the repression of death from public consciousness, cemeteries lose their role as a focal point in social communication. I draw attention to the radical utopian ideas of the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov, who not only considered the cemetery as a locus of memory, but also proclaimed the task of the transformation of cemeteries into a base for universal work on resurrection of dead ancestors and the restoration of brotherly relations in all mankind

Aesthetics · Consciousness · Cultural identity · Epistemology · Modernity · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Gender Studies · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

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