Negotiating the aesthetics of mourning in Luxembourg: on pre-modern forms in post-modern spaces

Comparative studies on funeral cultures are mainly concerned with differences related to religious diversity. On Luxembourgish cemeteries, religious differences have been, until recently, largely irrelevant. An explanation for this can be found in the country’s immigration policy that was based on the principle that religious conformity, i.e. adherence to Roman Catholicism, be a condition for immigration. This did not prevent the country’s urban cemeteries from becoming representations of a culturally diverse immigration society. The paper concentrates on the funeral culture of Cape Verdean migrants, which is characterized by collective ritual mourning and puts into question conventional distinctions of public/private and sacred/mundane spaces. By analyzing various aspects of the negotiation of funeral aesthetics – the materiality of the grave, the expressive modes of mourning, and the social encounters involved – the author makes a plea for a more encompassing understanding of the notion of ‘deathscape’ that transcends fundamental dimensions of the modern functional differentiation of space.