Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Grave Politics and Grave Tourism

Image: "Riots in Belfast. British army riot troops smash down Milltown cemetery gates to disperse IRA sympathizers. April 19, 1976" @imagestate.com,

Credit: © Tramonto / age fotostock / Imagestate

(http://www.imagestate.com/Preview/PreviewPage.aspx?id=1953189&pricing=true&licenseType=RM

)


Today I was reading a Cuban blog on politics, graves and dissidence ("Los policĂ­as del camposanto", "The Graveyard's police" http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/?p=4627 ), something that reminded me of things read a long time ago ( a parallel to Belfast 1976 came to my mind - see image above).

In the attempt to find more about this cemetery however, I stumbled upon a website: http://www.findagrave.com/; this website founded in 1995 by Jim Tipton to find graves of famous people around the world.

Anyone able to suggest some past and current research on "grave tourism" (also referred as "death tourism" and "graveyards tourism") please let me know!



Thursday, February 3, 2011

ageing and death in China


"Imagine a country in which the population is rapidly ageing and yet people do not want to talk about how to care for the elderly because they think it could bring bad luck." Martin Patience - BBC News, Beijing.

Read his brief but interesting article about China and its cultural attitude towards death and dying http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12334284