Tactical Memorials as Landscapes of Death, Grief, Mourning and Memory in Twelve U.S. Communities, 1989 - 2004

Principal Investigator:

Chris Steele

Memorial landscapes are important windows into the sociocultural meaning of death, grief, mourning, and memory in the United States. As 'materialized discourse', tactical memorials are vernacular affiliates to conventional memorial landscapes. Although scholars have begun addressing tactical memorials, there is a paucity of empirical research on the intentions, outcomes, practices, and products of their construction by individuals and groups. This study sets out a triangulated geographic research design to investigate the spatial pattern and social character of tactical memorials in twelve urban communities struck by multi-victim tragedies. The fundamental proposition of this study is that there is an important progression of individual and collective memorial tactics which embed multiple meanings into community landscapes in the wake of multi-victim tragedies.