Ruth McManus – författare

Attitudes towards death are shaped by our social worlds. This book explores how beliefs, practices and representations of dying and death continue to evolve and adapt in response to changing global societies. Introducing students to debates around grief, religion and life expectancy, this is a clear guide to a complex field for all sociologists.

Attitudes towards death are shaped by our social worlds. This book explores how beliefs, practices and representations of dying and death continue to evolve and adapt in response to changing global societies. Introducing students to debates around grief, religion and life expectancy, this is a clear guide to a complex field for all sociologists.

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 that have settled here.In the backdrop of the colonising history of Aotearoa New Zealand, the book examines the complex legislative framework that separates Māori and non-Māori funerary legislation and practices. Examining the mixed model of provision spanning municipal, commercial, and private organisations, the book outlines various aspects of funerals, such as the care of the body, funeral arrangements, costs, and what state support is available. It also delves into the two legal ways to manage the dead: burial or cremation, with cremation now the majority option. The book explores the numbers, ownership and locations of crematoria and cemeteries before identifying the new trends influencing death care including sustainability. It then looks at how death is memorialised in Aotearoa New Zealand, including in cemeteries, for war memorialisation, and other public commemoration and memorialisation.This book will be of interest to the growing body of local authority planners, researchers, and funeral professionals who must be responsive to and provide their services in complex multi-cultural contexts. As the scope of the book is historical and contemporary death practices, it will also appeal to social historians.

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 that have settled here.In the backdrop of the colonising history of Aotearoa New Zealand, the book examines the complex legislative framework that separates Māori and non-Māori funerary legislation and practices. Examining the mixed model of provision spanning municipal, commercial, and private organisations, the book outlines various aspects of funerals, such as the care of the body, funeral arrangements, costs, and what state support is available. It also delves into the two legal ways to manage the dead: burial or cremation, with cremation now the majority option. The book explores the numbers, ownership and locations of crematoria and cemeteries before identifying the new trends influencing death care including sustainability. It then looks at how death is memorialised in Aotearoa New Zealand, including in cemeteries, for war memorialisation, and other public commemoration and memorialisation.This book will be of interest to the growing body of local authority planners, researchers, and funeral professionals who must be responsive to and provide their services in complex multi-cultural contexts. As the scope of the book is historical and contemporary death practices, it will also appeal to social historians.

Looking at suburbs as places of creativity gives rise to novel and thought-provoking narratives that typically run counter to the idea that suburbs are sites of "ordinary," "mundane," and "everyday" practices. Far from being geographies of "nowhere" – dull, materialistic, and monotone – suburbs are unpacked as being heterogeneous and historically layered places of living, work, and creation. Situating creativity in place and time, Creativity from Suburban Nowheres displaces mainstream understandings of creativity and widespread stereotypes commonly associated with the suburbs.Contributors explore the particular forms of creativity that suburbs elicit both in the process of their making, materialization, and community construction, and in the myriad ways in which suburbs are inhabited and experienced. They highlight accounts of suburbs as places that give people the space and latitude to shape individual and collective identities through creative practices at odds with mainstream culture, and often remote from the classic agglomeration "assets" associated with inner cities.Anchored in historical and geographical research, this volume highlights how and in what forms creativity should be understood in the suburbs, why and when creativity can be found, and how the notion of suburban creativity overthrows ingrained and dominant normative viewpoints. Rather than seeing creativity arise despite its suburban location, Creativity from Suburban Nowheres illuminates the emancipatory potential of suburbs for creativity.

Looking at suburbs as places of creativity gives rise to novel and thought-provoking narratives that typically run counter to the idea that suburbs are sites of "ordinary," "mundane," and "everyday" practices. Far from being geographies of "nowhere" – dull, materialistic, and monotone – suburbs are unpacked as being heterogeneous and historically layered places of living, work, and creation. Situating creativity in place and time, Creativity from Suburban Nowheres displaces mainstream understandings of creativity and widespread stereotypes commonly associated with the suburbs.Contributors explore the particular forms of creativity that suburbs elicit both in the process of their making, materialization, and community construction, and in the myriad ways in which suburbs are inhabited and experienced. They highlight accounts of suburbs as places that give people the space and latitude to shape individual and collective identities through creative practices at odds with mainstream culture, and often remote from the classic agglomeration "assets" associated with inner cities.Anchored in historical and geographical research, this volume highlights how and in what forms creativity should be understood in the suburbs, why and when creativity can be found, and how the notion of suburban creativity overthrows ingrained and dominant normative viewpoints. Rather than seeing creativity arise despite its suburban location, Creativity from Suburban Nowheres illuminates the emancipatory potential of suburbs for creativity.