About the book
Under the working title Governing the Dead in the Megacities of the Global South, this upcoming volume in the Routledge series Accommodating the Dead: Materialities, Rituals and Technologies will explore how cities and municipal authorities grapple with excessive pressure on cemetery, morgue, and crematorium infrastructures.
Focusing on megacities (over 10 million inhabitants) and high-density urban areas (over 1,000 inhabitants per square kilometer) across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, this collection aims to:
- Bridging Death Studies and Urban Planning: Theoretically articulate the fields of death studies with that of urban studies, especially in the context of pressing claims that both fields (urban studies as well as death theories) need to decenter epistemologies.
- Addressing Cultural Diversity in High-Density Cities: Theoretically unpack the specific challenges of large, socio-culturally extremely diverse metropolises in accommodating the dead in culturally appropriate ways.
- Comparing Infrastructure Governance Across Regions: Empirically juxtapose state-of-the-art knowledge on dead disposal regimes and governance from different megacities in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, especially in light of increasing problems with overpopulated and/or underattended cemeteries, morgues, and crematoriums, to allow for comparisons and complementary policy ideas.
- Advancing Methodologies from the Global South: Methodologically innovate epistemologies with specific attention for new approaches coming from Global South-based scholars and also allowing for mixed methods approaches.
Call for papers
Scholars, urban planners, and researchers are invited to submit chapter proposals focusing on theoretically and empirically informed case studies of no more than 250 words by the end of October 2026.
If accepted, full chapters of up to 8,000 words must be completed by the end of March 2027. Please note that while contributions are welcomed from across the globe, all submissions must be written in English. The volume is scheduled for publication in 2027.
For complete details on the Routledge series Accommodating the Dead, submission guidelines, and series scope, please consult the following documents:
For any questions or to submit your proposal, please contact:
- Dr. Christien Klaufus (University of Amsterdam): c.j.klaufus@uva.nl
- Dr. Julie Rugg (University of York): julie.rugg@york.ac.uk
*Cover photo generated with Google Gemini (2026).
