Géographie de l’oubli · Tombes

Café Géo, Lyon: “The Geography of Oblivion: Abandoned Graves in Cemeteries”, presented by Louise Dall’Aglio

The “Geography of Oblivion” in cemeteries is based on research by Louis Dall’Aglio (a qualified teacher and PhD holder in geography from the ENS de Lyon / UMR EVS) into burial sites in the Lyon metropolitan area.

What cemeteries reveal about our relationship with the living

Close your eyes and imagine a cemetery. What is it like? For some, it will be old, moss-covered graves surrounded by fallen leaves, from which a squirrel might occasionally dart out… For others, it will be a row of gleaming granite gravestones separated by neatly mown lawns; still others imagine a place where the dead rest and the living go about their business – here a passer-by, further on, a pram…

Our view of the cemetery says a great deal about our relationship with both death and nature, and the place of eternal rest for our dead has thus become, in recent years, a battleground for ideological conflict.

Since 2022, cemeteries – like other public spaces – can no longer be weeded using pesticides, which has led some local authorities to undertake a fundamental review of the role nature should play in municipal cemeteries.