Death and Grief in the Landscape: Private Memorials in Public Space

Margaret Gibson

doi:10.5130/csr.v17i1.1975

Cultural Studies Review 17.1 March 2011 The Death Scene: Perspectives on Mortality

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v17i1.1975

Keywords:

Memorials, death, grief, landscape

Margaret Gibson

Griffith University

Abstract

This article discusses private, informal memorialisation practices that mark scenes and sites of death in public spaces and places. It focuses on changing practices of public visibilities of death and grief – practices that render visible in a semiotic way what would otherwise be invisible or relatively unknown occurrences of death. It argues that roadside memorials and other types of informal public memorials bring to consciousness and signification spaces and places that might otherwise be perceived as death neutral or untouched by death.

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 1 (2011): The Death Scene: Perspectives on Mortality

Section

The Death Scene (Peer Reviewed)

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Author Biography

Margaret Gibson, Griffith University

Margaret Gibson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Griffith University, Australia. Her book Objects of the Dead: mourning and memory in everyday life (2008) explores transformations in the perception and valuing of objects/property after a loved one dies. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on mourning and memorialisation practices in both physical and virtual world contexts.

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Margaret Gibson, Griffith University