Funerary Practices in the Netherlands

Mathijssen and Venhorst describe funerary practices in the Netherlands as a dynamic field still being shaped by a Protestant majority in the North and a Roman Catholic majority in the South, by the segregation of society into pillars, by the arrival of migrants from the former colonies of Suriname and Indonesia and from the Caribbean territories, by the arrival of guest workers from the peripheries of Europe and elsewhere, by individualization and secularization, by emancipation movements, and by technical innovation. They cover history, demographic and legal frameworks, the funeral directing industry, paying for funerals, a typical funeral, burial and cemeteries, cremation and crematoria, and death and remembrance in the public sphere. -- Annotation 2019 * (protoview.com) *

Brenda Mathijssen is Assistant Professor of Psychology, Culture and Religion at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She is the author of Making Sense of Death: Ritual Practices and Situational Beliefs of the Recently Bereaved in the Netherlands (2017) and Dood: Wegwijs in de Nederlandse Uitvaartcultuur (2017). Claudia Venhorst is a religious studies scholar and photographer at the Centre for Thanatology at Radboud University, the Netherlands. She is author of Muslims Ritualising Death in the Netherlands: Death Rites in a Small Town Context (2014) and Dood: Wegwijs in de Nederlandse Uitvaartcultuur (2017).

Chapter 1. The Netherlands: An Introduction Chapter 2. History Chapter 3. Demographic and legal frameworks Chapter 4. The funeral directing industry Chapter 5. Paying for funerals Chapter 6. A typical funeral Chapter 7. Burial and Cemeteries Chapter 8. Cremation and Crematoria Chapter 9. Death and Remembrance in the Public Sphere