Making the cemetery work – the role of cemetery staff in grave plot choice

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the role of cemetery staff in governing death culture based on a study of cemetery staff working for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark (ELCD). The article analyses the values that guide the staff’s practices as they conduct their role as frontline employees and navigate between rules, regulations and values in their encounters with the cemetery users. There is a specific focus on the process of guiding the choice of grave plot and the role of cemetery staff as central agents in the shaping of mortuary culture as part of contemporary lived religion. In doing so, it argues for the inclusion of a broader range of official professionals in the study of the lived religion of religious institutions today.

KEYWORDS:

• Cemeteries
• staff
• governance
• death culture

Acknowledgments

This article is based on a joint research project funded by the University of Aarhus in collaboration with the Research Centre for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark (FUV). The project was led by Professor Ulla Schmidt, Aarhus University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by with the Research Centre for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark (FUV). The project was led by Professor Ulla Schmidt, Aarhus University.

Notes on contributors

Marie Vejrup Nielsen

Marie Vejrup Nielsen, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the Department for the Study of Religion, Aarhus University. She was the director of the Center for Contemporary Religion from 2015-2020. Her research area is contemporary Christianity with a focus on the transformations of majority religion in a Western context. She is also part of the editorial team responsible for the online-publication series ‘Religion in Denmark’. Among her publications are ‘Occasional consumers in the folk church’ in Individualisation, marketisation and social capital in a cultural institution: the case of the Danish folk church. eds./Hans Raun Iversen; Lisbet Christoffersen; Niels Kærgård; Margit Warburg. Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2019, 235-253 (University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and Social Sciences; Nr. 582). And: ‘Transforming churches: the lived religion of religious organizations in a contemporary context’, co-author Johansen, Kirstine Helboe in Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2019, Vol. 34, 3. 509-527.