"Där vi levande vistas" : en diskursanalytisk studie av den svenska begravningsplatsen som besöksmål

Sammanfattning: The cemetery is a place which carries many different meanings and is used in varying ways. This holds true for these places today, as well as historically. The cemetery, as opposed to the churchyard, is a distinctly urban location, designed especially for burials and remembrance. Today, it is used for activities such as cultural heritage tourism, exercise, picnics etcetera as much as it is a place used by people to bury and mourn their dead friends and relatives. What does this mean for the definition and understanding of the cemetery today? The aim of this master’s thesis is to shed light on which of the cemetery’s different aspects are actually valued today, in relation to its visitors. This means shedding light on how cemeteries, as a destination for visitors, are defined today, which can in turn affect how these cultural heritage locations will be preserved, altered and interpreted in the future. To define is to exercise power. The main theoretical and methodological framework is discourse analysis, but the concepts of heterotopia and cultural and communicative memory also play a part. The main conclusion is that the discourse of the Swedish cemetery is a discourse in flux. The definition of the cemetery as a quiet landscape inscribed with communicative as well as cultural memory has been a relatively fixed point within the discourse since the 18th century. New dominant uses redefine these places as a kind of united park and garden – still reflecting the cemetery’s complex combination of public and private landscape. These differing definitions have been part of the discourse since its inception, but the power dynamics between them now seem to shift. These shifts can change certain aspects of the cemetery while acknowledging others, such as the old, unmarked graves of the poor becoming excluded from the affirmation and musealisation of the cemetery’s memorial culture.