A major open access research book co-edited by Avril Maddrell, Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Reading, continues to offer timely insight into questions of migration, identity and belonging across Europe.
Published in 2023 by Springer Nature as part of the IMISCOE Research series, Mobilities in Life and Death: Negotiating Room for Migrants and Minorities in European Cemeteries examines how cemeteries and crematoria function as important public spaces for inclusion, exclusion and cultural identity.
The edited collection emerged from the European HERA-funded CeMi Project project, Cemeteries and Crematoria as Public Spaces of Belonging in Europe, which explored how migrant and minority communities negotiate cultural, religious and social belonging through practices surrounding death, remembrance and memorialisation.
The book was awarded first prize in 2020 for IMISCOE book proposals, securing full open access publication support.
At a time when migration, identity and public space remain central topics across Europe, the collection highlights how spaces of mourning and remembrance can also become spaces of negotiation, visibility and community formation.
Professor Maddrell’s wider research focuses on migration, emotional geographies, deathscapes, pilgrimage and social inclusion. Her recent work also includes research into the social and spatial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the 2023 paper The multiple intensities of COVID-19 space-times, published in Social & Cultural Geography.
The open access book is available here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-28284-3