A funeral for a glacier: Mourning the more-than-human on the edges of modernity
Many have argued that contemporary western societies, broadly conceived, are moving towards a greater openness towards death and the public display of grief. While this development does perhaps not constitute a return to the “tame death” that Ariès spoke of, it certainly points to a situation at som...
Main Authors: | , |
---|---|
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Suomalaisen Kuolemantutkimuksen Seura Ry
2023
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://journal.fi/thanatos/article/view/137230 |
id |
fttsvojs:oai:journal.fi:article/137230 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
fttsvojs:oai:journal.fi:article/137230 2023-11-12T04:17:30+01:00 A funeral for a glacier: Mourning the more-than-human on the edges of modernity Árnason , Arnar Hafsteinsson , Sigurjón Baldur 2023-09-26 application/pdf https://journal.fi/thanatos/article/view/137230 eng eng Suomalaisen Kuolemantutkimuksen Seura Ry https://journal.fi/thanatos/article/view/137230/85335 https://journal.fi/thanatos/article/view/137230 Copyright (c) 2023 Arnar Árnason , Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 Thanatos; Vol. 9 No. 2 (2020): Connective Histories of Death Thanatos; Vol 9 Nro 2 (2020): Connective Histories of Death 2242-6280 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 2023 fttsvojs 2023-10-18T23:02:09Z Many have argued that contemporary western societies, broadly conceived, are moving towards a greater openness towards death and the public display of grief. While this development does perhaps not constitute a return to the “tame death” that Ariès spoke of, it certainly points to a situation at some remove from the “taboo” around death, the “wild death” that Gorer (1965) and Ariès (1974a; 1974b), respectively, argued had overtaken “modern” western societies. The point has been made, that examples of this new (alleged) openness towards death, include the emerging possibilities to mourn losses that until recently remained hidden. In many contemporary western contexts, for example, aborted foetuses and stillborn babies, that not so long ago would have been disposed of privately, are now publicly mourned. Similarly, pets, whose non-humanity until recently removed them from processes of public mourning, are now legitimate objects of the public expression of grief. In this paper we focus on the mourning of the glacier Ok in Iceland, as an example of how this trend is now extending to the loss of natural phenomena. Drawing on Cunsolo Willox’s work and bringing together the recent literature on the more-than-human and the new materialisms, on one hand, and literature that speaks of the links between “modernity”, mourning and loss, on the other, we ask if the trends hinted at above signal a change, a rupture, or the continuation of mourning that has always been part of the modernity experience. Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier Iceland Federation of Finnish Learned Societies: Scientific Journals Online |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Federation of Finnish Learned Societies: Scientific Journals Online |
op_collection_id |
fttsvojs |
language |
English |
description |
Many have argued that contemporary western societies, broadly conceived, are moving towards a greater openness towards death and the public display of grief. While this development does perhaps not constitute a return to the “tame death” that Ariès spoke of, it certainly points to a situation at some remove from the “taboo” around death, the “wild death” that Gorer (1965) and Ariès (1974a; 1974b), respectively, argued had overtaken “modern” western societies. The point has been made, that examples of this new (alleged) openness towards death, include the emerging possibilities to mourn losses that until recently remained hidden. In many contemporary western contexts, for example, aborted foetuses and stillborn babies, that not so long ago would have been disposed of privately, are now publicly mourned. Similarly, pets, whose non-humanity until recently removed them from processes of public mourning, are now legitimate objects of the public expression of grief. In this paper we focus on the mourning of the glacier Ok in Iceland, as an example of how this trend is now extending to the loss of natural phenomena. Drawing on Cunsolo Willox’s work and bringing together the recent literature on the more-than-human and the new materialisms, on one hand, and literature that speaks of the links between “modernity”, mourning and loss, on the other, we ask if the trends hinted at above signal a change, a rupture, or the continuation of mourning that has always been part of the modernity experience. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Árnason , Arnar Hafsteinsson , Sigurjón Baldur |
spellingShingle |
Árnason , Arnar Hafsteinsson , Sigurjón Baldur A funeral for a glacier: Mourning the more-than-human on the edges of modernity |
author_facet |
Árnason , Arnar Hafsteinsson , Sigurjón Baldur |
author_sort |
Árnason , Arnar |
title |
A funeral for a glacier: Mourning the more-than-human on the edges of modernity |
title_short |
A funeral for a glacier: Mourning the more-than-human on the edges of modernity |
title_full |
A funeral for a glacier: Mourning the more-than-human on the edges of modernity |
title_fullStr |
A funeral for a glacier: Mourning the more-than-human on the edges of modernity |
title_full_unstemmed |
A funeral for a glacier: Mourning the more-than-human on the edges of modernity |
title_sort |
funeral for a glacier: mourning the more-than-human on the edges of modernity |
publisher |
Suomalaisen Kuolemantutkimuksen Seura Ry |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://journal.fi/thanatos/article/view/137230 |
genre |
glacier Iceland |
genre_facet |
glacier Iceland |
op_source |
Thanatos; Vol. 9 No. 2 (2020): Connective Histories of Death Thanatos; Vol 9 Nro 2 (2020): Connective Histories of Death 2242-6280 |
op_relation |
https://journal.fi/thanatos/article/view/137230/85335 https://journal.fi/thanatos/article/view/137230 |
op_rights |
Copyright (c) 2023 Arnar Árnason , Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 |
_version_ |
1782334369999880192 |