Julie Joyce Rugg’s research while affiliated with The Graduate Center, CUNY and other places

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Publications (8)


The disposal of cremation ashes in tourism settings: practices, impacts and management
  • Article

April 2022

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125 Reads

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4 Citations

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Julie Joyce Rugg

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Craig Young

Although research into the relationship between tourism and death has predominantly focused on dark tourism, tourism scholars are exploring other forms of association between the two. In this context, this paper focuses on a little-researched practice in tourism studies: the scattering of cremation ashes in spaces used for tourism and leisure. This is not a universal practice, and it may only be commonplace in countries with permissive legislation regarding the ‘disposal’ of cremation ashes. After considering the disposal of ashes in historical context, we examine practices of ashes scattering in three types of tourism setting: visitor attractions, areas of managed countryside, and sports grounds/stadia. We explore the range of management responses to scattering, ranging from outright prohibition, to treating the practice as a form of revenue generation. We also consider the dissonance that can arise from ashes scattering, particularly the emotional impact on other leisure users of an encounter with human remains, but also the emotional labour demanded of employees who are required to manage this practice. The paper identifies a number of future research directions intended to throw more light on the practices and implications of scattering cremation ashes in tourism and leisure settings.


Further remarks on modern sepulture : Twenty years of cemetery studies and eight core questions defining cemetery research

January 2022

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76 Reads

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9 Citations

This paper reviews cemetery publications over the last twenty years and considers current trends and new directions. In these two decades, cemetery research has included contributions from the humanities, social sciences and sciences and its inter-national reach has expanded substantially, echoing the expansion in geographic scope of death studies. The study of cemeteries has also benefited from a spatial turn within a number of disciplines: within death studies, conceptions of “deathscapes” or “necroscapes” has expanded the range of questions asked of all locations where death is encountered. The paper is ordered using eight core questions that can be asked of any kind of space used for the interment of the dead either as a full body or as cremated remains: how do we define this space?; how has this space come to be?; what does this space mean?; what does this space look like?; how is it used?; what do we express through this space?; how is the space managed? and how is this space valued? The review indicates that the field of cemetery studies is intrinsically interdisciplinary, where nuance of meaning and degree of significance is best captured in the interstices between and interplay of separate discipline traditions, themes and methods.


Funerary heritage tourism: definitions and principles
  • Article
  • Full-text available

December 2021

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63 Reads

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3 Citations

Revista Murciana de Antropología

En muchas grandes ciudades, el ‘primer’ cementerio decimonónico es cada vez más el núcleo del turismo de cementerios. El texto considera el ‘patrimonio funerario’ como un desarrollo relacionado pero diferente. Señala la posible relación incómoda entre el turismo de cemen- terios y patrimonio funerario, en parte debido a la falta de voluntad de asociar directamente las visitas a los cementerios con la muerte. Un turismo de cementerios mal planteado puede socavar el patrimonio tangible e intangible de los cementerios. Muchos cementerios siguen en uso y, por lo tanto, deben considerase como ‘patrimonio vivo’. En estas circunstancias, la interpretación debe reconocer a los afectados como partes interesadas relevantes, mientras que los sistemas de interpretación deben comunicar con más firmeza los diversos aspectos de la mortalidad. Poner de relieve las dinámicas de ‘funcionamiento’ del cementerio es un marco narrativo poco explorado y es necesario ser consciente de que las formas de interpre- tación pueden sesgar el esfuerzo de conservación. Asimismo, se pueden plantear cuestiones éticas. En el texto sugerimos que, como mínimo, esa interpretación debería demostrar cómo la humanidad, en todas las épocas y culturas, se ha esforzado por aceptar la muerte. In many major cities, the ‘first’ nineteenth-century cemetery is increasingly the focus of cemetery tourism. This paper recognises ‘funerary heritage’ as an associated but separate development. It indicates that there can be an uneasy relationship between cemetery tourism and funerary heritage, in part resting on unwillingness directly to associate cemetery visits with death. Poorly framed cemetery tourism can actively undermine both the tangible and intangible heritage of cemeteries. Many cemeteries are still in use, and this paper regards these sites as ‘living heritage’. In these circumstances, interpretation should acknowledge the bereaved as relevant stakeholders; interpretation needs to be more confident in the ways in which it talks about the various aspects of mortality; foregrounding how the cemetery ‘works’ presents an under-explored narrative frame; and there is a need to be aware of the ways that interpretation can skew conservation effort. Ethical issues also pertain. Here it is suggested that, at the very least, that interpretation should demonstrate how –across all times and cultures– humanity has striven to come to terms with mortality.

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Figure 1. Dick Turpin's grave in St George's churchyard, York (UK).
Turismo del patrimonio funerario: Definiciones y principios

December 2021

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65 Reads

Revista Murciana de Antropología

En muchas grandes ciudades, el ‘primer’ cementerio decimonónico es cada vez más el núcleo del turismo de cementerios. El texto considera el ‘patrimonio funerario’ como un desarrollo relacionado pero diferente. Señala la posible relación incómoda entre el turismo de cemen- terios y patrimonio funerario, en parte debido a la falta de voluntad de asociar directamente las visitas a los cementerios con la muerte. Un turismo de cementerios mal planteado puede socavar el patrimonio tangible e intangible de los cementerios. Muchos cementerios siguen en uso y, por lo tanto, deben considerase como ‘patrimonio vivo’. En estas circunstancias, la interpretación debe reconocer a los afectados como partes interesadas relevantes, mientras que los sistemas de interpretación deben comunicar con más firmeza los diversos aspectos de la mortalidad. Poner de relieve las dinámicas de ‘funcionamiento’ del cementerio es un marco narrativo poco explorado y es necesario ser consciente de que las formas de interpre- tación pueden sesgar el esfuerzo de conservación. Asimismo, se pueden plantear cuestiones éticas. En el texto sugerimos que, como mínimo, esa interpretación debería demostrar cómo la humanidad, en todas las épocas y culturas, se ha esforzado por aceptar la muerte.


Nineteenth-century burial reform: a reappraisal

December 2020

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76 Reads

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1 Citation

In comparison with other European nations, 19th-century burial reform in England is often related as a history of difference and failure. England lacked centralising legislation to enforce the establishment of new, sanitary cemeteries. Rather, permissive regulation encouraged the creation of new cemeteries, largely reliant on local initiative. This paper presents a re-evaluation of that history by focussing on archival documents from the General Board of Health and local burial board minutes. The paper discusses the way in which key individuals and agencies developed a refined understanding of the sanitary dangers presented by decomposing bodies. This understanding rested on deep familiarity with Continental European research and practices. Despite the lack of centralising legislation, the General Board of Health and the Burial Office administered an effective system of sanitary burial governance which combined inspection, advice and bureaucratic processes that worked with local communities to develop a national network of cemeteries that were managed according to scientific practices.


Social justice and cemetery systems

June 2020

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169 Reads

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26 Citations

This paper applies social justice frameworks to "cemetery systems," which here denotes the framework by which each nation state orders the disposal of the dead, and which generally includes burial, cremation and the interment or scattering of cremated remains. An application of social justice theory indicates the desirability of certain key principles for all cemetery systems: decent disposal as a human right; democratic accountability; equality of access to services regardless of income; freedom of religious expression; and environmental sustainability. Achieving these principles is not necessarily straightforward, and conflict between principles is heightened by financialization and population densification.


Secularidad y Espascios de Enterramiento en la Inglaterra del siglo XIX

December 2019

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38 Reads

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5 Citations

Revista Murciana de Antropología

This paper challenges the contention that secularity is always central to the idea of the cemetery. In largely Protestant England a 'culture war' was enjoined between supporters of the Church of England and various denominations of Protestant Dissent. The cemetery was a focus of conflict, centred on the degree of control exercised by the Established Church. This conflict did not reflect demand for 'civic' funerals. Protestant Nonconformists sought to secure burial space where they might express their own beliefs. Through the nineteenth century and up until the First World War, the framing of burial law was accompanied by divisive debate. Cemeteries came to signify both religious freedom and the oppressive influence of the Established Church. Cemetery establishment was also accompanied by regulation on sanitary burial management, but this did not define burial space as being innately secular. Rather, in England, the cemetery was and remains a spatial co-production of sanitary technology, municipal bureaucracy and spiritual expression.


Citations (4)


... The analysis focuses on the influence of four interlinked aspects-population growth, health concerns, accessibility and legislation-in decisionmaking concerning the location of the city's new cemetery. Addressing an individual cemetery's local context places the cemetery in a wider national story of cemetery development (Rugg, 2022), offering an opportunity to examine the processes shaping the transformation of Auckland's landscape in response to growing pressures of urban expansion and population growth. This cemetery forms an integral part of the city's historical development but until now has not received critical interrogation of its place or its intended role to alleviate growing concerns over the appropriate disposal of Auckland's deceased. ...

Reference:

Uncompromisingly unique: Tracing the origins of Waikūmete Cemetery in Auckland, New Zealand, 1870–1886
Further remarks on modern sepulture : Twenty years of cemetery studies and eight core questions defining cemetery research
  • Citing Article
  • January 2022

... A number of studies have reported straightforward population projections (Ibhadode et al., 2017), but rather more significant work in this arena has sought to understand the nature of funerary preferences and how this might frame demand analysis (Davies and Bennett, 2016;Allam, 2019). Laws restricting where the dead can legally be interred generally reflect scientific understanding of the polluting nature of decomposing human remains, coffins and coffin material (Neckel et al., 2017;Fiedler et al., 2018;Nguyen and Nguyen, 2018), and evidence a long-standing association between cemeteries and the technologies of sanitary practice (Rugg, 2019a). Scientific studies now often acknowledge the challenge of balancing the social significance of burial space and the need to meet broader ecological and public health agendas (Uslu et al., 2009). ...

Nineteenth-century burial reform: a reappraisal

... Haneman (2022: 330) warns that the funeral industry has a near monopoly on the kinds of funeral options we pursue and 'benefits both from information asymmetry and etiquette uncertainty', in part due to our individual and social neuroses around death, making financial accumulation through funeral market volatility an important problem for sociologists of mortality. Within this context, Rugg (2022) identifies the growing financialization of human body disposal as antithetical to social justice, sustainability, or democratic accountability. Decent, dignified, and universally affordable funeral care provision should be a tangible and achievable goal for current and future governments to aspire to, including, we believe, through a combination of nationalised 'baseline' service exceeding current provision, and through genuinely cooperative local funeral schemes. ...

Social justice and cemetery systems
  • Citing Article
  • June 2020

... The article is a reminder that cemetery space shapes, enables and restricts ritual expression in response to mortality. There have been long-standing presumptions that the cemetery is a signal of modern secularity (Rugg, 2019b). In actuality, cemeteries are places where individuals express both formal beliefs relating to the afterlife (Venbrux, et al. 2013;Garces-Foley, 2015) and less formal "spirituality" and hope (Davies and Rumble, 2012). ...

Secularidad y Espascios de Enterramiento en la Inglaterra del siglo XIX

Revista Murciana de Antropología