UC Santa Barbara

People die in many ways, but once dead, their bodies have been treated much the same way for the past 200 years in the United States. Most people have been buried in simple graves; if they died in the 1900s or later, they will likely have had a “conventional” burial in which they were removed from the home or hospital, embalmed, placed in a casket, and buried in a vaulted grave, encased in cement. Some may have been cremated, and the likelihood of cremation increased over time, rapidly growing in the 1980s and 1990s until, in 2016, the number of people cremated surpassed the number of burials. Since the late 1990s, some have turned away from conventional burial, embalming, and cremation to advocate for more ecologically friendly and meaningful alternatives. This dissertation examines the development of, and values associated with three eco-disposition methods that are becoming more popular in the U.S.: green burial, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction. This dissertation relies on ethnographic interviews of providers and others involved in promoting or choosing eco-disposition, supplemented with survey data from secular individuals regarding disposition preference, to determine the cultural, religious, and legal implications behind their growing popularity and the values associated with these emergent practices. Drawing from these data, I found that eco-disposition options are being vetted in some states and municipalities where, if approved, they open up new spaces for people to develop rituals focused on the dead body and express deeply held, but not necessarily religious or spiritual, values that center on the enduring importance of the deceased individual. The physical spaces cultivated for green burial, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction reflect and reinforce the values of the regions and time in which they were created. Both these spaces and the practices themselves shape the ways in which people ritually engage with the deceased body. Approaching eco-disposition from the field of religious studies, these findings demonstrate that individuals bring a variety of beliefs, values, and practices to the deceased body itself, many of which are increasingly found outside of traditional religion. As there is greater diversity among individuals who identify as not religious, secular, or nothing in particular, I observe people are choosing death practices that focus on values that include the environmental, embodied experience, and the importance of the individual deceased person. Drawing from theorists in ritual studies, secular studies, and religious studies, I contend that the site of the deceased body itself is one in which beliefs, values, and practice are ultimately reckoned with for both individuals and providers.