Routledge International Focus on Death and Funeral Practices
About the Book Series
Death Studies is an international and interdisciplinary endeavour and encompasses an interest in all mortality-related themes. This series of shortform books provides essential information on death and funeral practices in countries throughout the world.
Creating a common framework for understanding funeral rituals rests on definition and the description of processes, events and rituals which ostensibly appear the same but in actuality are markedly different, country to country. Each book has the same basic structure, which incorporates:
- historic, contextual background to understand how funeral practices have developed;
- burial and cremation rates, and change over time;
- an outline of key legislation guiding death registration, the funeral industry and cemetery and crematorium provision;
- what happens in the event of a death;
- an overview of the funeral industry including the ways in which funeral directing services are delivered and the balance of state/private involvement in funeral directing business;
- the cost of funerals and how they are paid for;
- church involvement in funerals and arrangements made for minority religious groups;
- a full and detailed description of a typical funeral;
- the provision of cemetery and crematorium services;
- patterns of commemoration
Fully referenced, and supported by relevant images, figures and tables, books in the series provide an essential research resource on practices, the law, and funeral-related procedures around the world. Collectively, the series provides an invaluable framework for international comparison.
Death and Funeral Practices in Aotearoa New Zealand
1st Edition
By Ruth McManus, Denise Blake, Jessica Thompson
April 03, 2025
This book provides a shortform definitive reference text on the landscape and features of Aotearoa New Zealand that underpin its familiar, though country-specific, ways of caring for the dead. It provides an account of diverse funerary practices that have taken shape through the various cultures ...
Death and Funeral Practices in Poland
1st Edition
Edited
By Anna E. Kubiak, Anna Długozima, Agnieszka Wedeł-Domaradzka
January 30, 2025
This book provides a shortform definitive reference text on funerary practice in Poland. An overview of the important features of the Polish funeral law, funerals, cremations, cemeteries, and funeral industry, the book also covers the demographic characteristic of mortality in Poland. Drawing on ...
Death and Funeral Practices in Portugal
1st Edition
By Rafaela Ferraz Ferreira, Ana Júlia Almeida Miranda, Francisco Queiroz
August 26, 2024
Academic studies on death and cemeteries are relatively recent in Portugal; those that do exist tend to adopt an essentially historical and artistic point of view. Studies on the practicalities of managing the dead and their spaces are even more recent, and they do not yet form a cohesive body of ...
Death and Funeral Practices in Russia
1st Edition
By Sergei Mokhov
August 26, 2024
Built on original ethnographic research conducted by the author, this book offers a highly detailed and comprehensive account of funerary history and practices in Russia. Death and Funeral Practices in Russia provides rich data on mortality statistics, trends in the funeral market in contemporary ...
Death and Funeral Practices in Japan
1st Edition
By Hannah Gould, Aki Miyazawa, Shinya Yamada
July 08, 2024
This book provides a clear and comprehensive introduction to the past, present, and future direction of death rituals and deathcare systems within Japan. As Japan heads toward a precarious future shaped by its super-ageing society, secularisation, and economic stagnation, the socioreligious ...