March 3, 2026

Garden of Grief::Practice-Based Grief Communities for Men 50+ in Cemetery Environments

Key Points

Alternative grief practices address the specific needs of men over 50 facing bereavement, emphasizing community and nature.
Initial findings highlight significant themes of social interaction and emotional atmosphere from cemetery environments.
The approach employs video ethnography to study interactions, revealing how place influences grief experiences.
Future work may enable better support systems for vulnerable groups, particularly in utilizing cemetery spaces for healing.

Abstract

This paper presents a new interdisciplinary and interorganizational research project between the University of Copenhagen, Helsingør Diocese, the Danish National Centre for Grief, and the Forum for Men's Health Denmark. It explores how cemeteries can support innovative grief practices for men aged 50+. This group constitute a vulnerable group with elevated risks of loneliness and poor well-being in connection to bereavement and grief (Lee et al., 2001). However, existing grief support services - typically based on talk-oriented group therapy - rarely meet their needs (Wuthrich Heath et al., 2010) to capture embodied, spatiotemporal and sociomaterial interactions. We show some video clips with men at the cemetery and provide preliminary analysis that focuses on the “atmosphere of cemeteries” (Böhme, 1993) and the interplay between place, people, and nature. The analysis enables us to advance the understanding of place-based practices and grief research by integrating social, material, and spatial dimensions inspired by the work of Despret (2021). References Böhme, G. (1993). Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics. Thesis Eleven, 36(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/072551369303600107Despret, V. (2021). Our Grateful Dead: Stories of Those Left Behind (S. Muecke, Trans.; 1st edn, Vol. 65). University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv1w7v24kDue, B. L. (2017). Multimodal interaktionsanalyse og videoetnografisk dataindsamling. Samfundslitteratur.Heath, C., Hindmarsh, J., & Luff, P. (2010). Video in Qualitative Research. SAGE Publications Ltd.Lee, G. R., DeMaris, A., Bavin, S., & Sullivan, R. (2001). Gender differences in the depressive effect of widowhood in later life. The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 56(1), S56-61. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/56.1.s56Wuthrich, V. M., & Frei, J. (2015). Barriers to treatment for older adults seeking psychological therapy. International Psychogeriatrics, 27(7), 1227–1236. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1041610215000241

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Garden of Grief::Practice-Based Grief Communities for Men 50+ in Cemetery Environments

Key Points

Abstract

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