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Alternative death rituals in Switzerland : building a community of shared emotions and practices

Lüddeckens, Dorothea (2018). Alternative death rituals in Switzerland : building a community of shared emotions and practices. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 33(1):107-121.

Abstract

New alternative death rituals are gaining significance in Switzerland, like in other contemporary Western societies. This article discusses how celebrants who are independent of any religious community shape alternative funerals and why such rituals may be able to function as a coping resource for a certain kind of participants. I argue that these rituals, co-produced by celebrants and the bereaved and including actively involved participants, can be seen as a re-conquest of ritual agency for lay people. By encouraging physical and mental contact with the deceased, the celebrants try to enable emotional arousal and create a temporary community of shared experiences and emotions and of the living and the dead. Elements of an individually crafted spirituality and a kind of nature religion represent both separation and continuing bonds between the living and the dead. As a consequence, such funerals serve as a resource in the face of death by integrating a singular death with the wider context.

Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:01 Faculty of Theology and the Study of Religion > Institute of Religious Studies
Dewey Decimal Classification:200 Religion
Scopus Subject Areas:Social Sciences & Humanities > Cultural Studies
Social Sciences & Humanities > Religious Studies
Social Sciences & Humanities > Philosophy
Language:English
Date:12 January 2018
Deposited On:27 Feb 2018 12:44
Last Modified:18 Oct 2024 01:39
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
ISSN:1353-7903
OA Status:Green
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2018.1408284
Related URLs:https://www.tandfonline.com (Publisher)
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