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Survivor trees and memorial groves : vegetal commemoration of victims of terrorism in Europe and the United States

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Heath-Kelly, Charlotte (2018) Survivor trees and memorial groves : vegetal commemoration of victims of terrorism in Europe and the United States. Political Geography, 64 . pp. 63-72. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.03.003 ISSN 0962-6298.

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.03.003

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Abstract

In commemorations of human lives lost in terrorism, European and American memorials increasingly appeal to the aesthetics of ‘nature’ to symbolise societal regrowth. This article interrogates the ironic and ontological registers involved in commemorating human life through vegetal symbols, paying particular attention to the World Trade Center site in Manhattan. Memorials traditionally conceive of human life as distinct from material and living ecologies, rarely commemorating the deaths of non-humans. As such, the use of trees and vegetal landscaping to represent and memorialise the dead human involves a complex and ironic ontological relationship. Post disaster place-making through vegetal symbolism equates vegetal and human being, on one level, but it also ironically emphasises the fundamental gulf between them. Survivors and visitors are confronted with regenerating vegetal life which evokes idealised ecological conceptions of networked human and non-human lives. But we do not live or die in the same way as a plant, so vegetal symbolism simultaneously invokes human alienation from the natural world. The aesthetic registers of the survivor trees bring a complex, unresolved and ironic reflection on human mortality to memorial landscapes.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D901 Europe (General)
F History United States, Canada, Latin America > F001 United States local history
G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GT Manners and customs
H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
Divisions: Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Memorials--United States, Memorials--Europe, Victims of terrorism--Monuments--United States, Victims of terrorism--Monuments--Europe, Trees--United States--Symbolic aspects, Trees--Europe--Symbolic aspects, Human-plant relationships
Journal or Publication Title: Political Geography
Publisher: Elsevier Science Inc.
ISSN: 0962-6298
Official Date: May 2018
Dates:
DateEvent
May 2018Published
19 March 2018Available
10 March 2018Accepted
Volume: 64
Page Range: pp. 63-72
DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.03.003
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Open Access (Creative Commons)
Date of first compliant deposit: 13 March 2018
Date of first compliant Open Access: 10 April 2018
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant:
Project/Grant IDRIOXX Funder NameFunder ID
ES/N002407/1[ESRC] Economic and Social Research Councilhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000269
ECF-2015-283Leverhulme Trusthttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000275
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