Managing green spaces of the deceased: Characteristics and dynamics of Danish cemetery administrations

Cemeteries in Denmark are managed by the national church; they are green spaces of high standard, with an important role as burial places for members of the society. Previous studies elsewhere indicate that cemetery management operates with special approaches on the fringe of other public service organisations. To gain a better understanding of cemetery administration, this paper will characterise cemetery management and in particular different types of cemetery administration in the national church of Denmark. A case study of 28 cemetery administrations was conducted, gathering key data about the cemeteries, and included 42 semi-structured interviews to address this question. The analyses indicated that the Danish cemetery administrations show traits similar to those found in previous studies. They are locally governed and marginalised from the rest of the local administration; they perceive themselves as unlike other administrations; and change is dependent on local initiatives, only occurring when necessary, but also with indications that cooperation in handling crises in the wider field do happen. The Danish cemeteries are categorised according to the constructs of urban and rural cemeteries and the conflicting logics of the cemetery as a static or a dynamic entity. Furthermore, the categorising can be related to the combination of utilisation of the grave areas and the adaptation of the cemetery site to local burial needs. This decouples, to some extent, economic performance from the efficiency of operation control and links it to strategic planning. The special traits of cemetery administration are associated with the special approaches and institutions that surround cemetery administration, because they are linked to the handling of the deceased. These two aspects seem appropriate for explaining the dissimilarity of cemetery administration from other public administrations and green space management in particular. Further research however is required.