Placemaking by the dead : cemeteries as emotional, moral and ritual places

Kuntarič Zupanc, Simona (author)

This article examines cemeteries in north-eastern Slovenia as deathscapes where the dead act as emotional, moral and ritual agents. Drawing on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2024, the study explores how relationships with the dead are maintained, transformed or disrupted through spatial practices and affective encounters. Everyday acts of care, such as tending graves or communicating with the deceased sustain cemeteries as places of moral continuity and family responsibility. At the same time, some encounters with the dead reveal more unsettling aspects of these relationships, where unresolved ties extend beyond death and require ritual intervention. Approaching continuing bonds from a spatial perspective, the article argues that relationships with the dead persist also through embodied practices tied to place.

• Language: English
• Keywords: cemetery, agency of the dead, deathscapes, continuing bonds, vernacular religion, spatial anthropology, Slovenia
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 41-69
• Numbering: Letn. 29
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-188038
• UDC: 133.9:39(497.4)
• ISSN on article: 1408-6271
• DOI: 10.3986/SMS20262904
• COBISS.SI-ID: 291506691
• Publication date in RUL: 17.09.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Studia mythologica Slavica
• Shortened title: Stud. mythol. Slav.
• Publisher: Znanstvenoraziskovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti, Inštitut za slovensko narodopisje, Università degli Studi di Pisa, Dipartimento di Linguistica, già Istituto di Lingua e Letteratura
• ISSN: 1408-6271
• COBISS.SI-ID: 75272960

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Mrtvi kot ustvarjalci prostora

Abstract

Članek obravnava pokopališča v severovzhodni Sloveniji kot pokrajine smrti, v katerih umrli delujejo kot čustveni, moralni in ritualni akterji. Na podlagi desetmesečnega etno-grafskega terenskega dela, izvedenega leta 2024, raziskava preučuje, kako se odnosi z umrlimi ohranjajo, preoblikujejo ali prekinjajo skozi prostorske prakse in afektivna srečanja. Vsakdanja dejanja skrbi, kot so urejanje grobov in pogovori z umrlimi, ohranjajo pokopališča kot kraje moralne kontinuitete in družinske odgovornosti. Hkrati pa nekatere izkušnje stika z mrtvimi razkrivajo tudi moteče razsežnosti teh vezi, kjer se nerešeni odnosi raztezajo onkraj smrti in zahtevajo ritualno posredovanje. Na pojmovni ravni članek opredeli model kontinuiranih vezi skozi prostorsko perspektivo ter pokaže, da vezi z umrlimi vztrajajo tudi v utelešenih, krajevno umeščenih praksah.

• Keywords: pokopališče, delovanje umrlih, pokrajine smrti, kontinuirane vezi, vernakularna religija, prostrska antropologija, Slovenija

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Project number: 101095729
• Name: The roles of the agency of the dead in the lives of individuals in contemporary society
• Acronym: DEAGENCY