There have long been official forms of commemoration, whether in monuments, statues, dedicatory plaques or cenotaphs, but grassroots processes of memorialization seem relatively recent, and continuously on the increase. In going to work or taking a Sunday stroll, coming across some half-wilted flowers stuck in a milkbottle, a sodden teddy or other personal memorabilia, and a message covered in transparent plastic, left by a tree or lamppost alongside a busy road, is a common enough occurrence. Grassroots memorials like these do not just refer to individuals tragically killed in one way or another; the reference can also be collective, as happened after 9/11, the Columbine school massacre and the Timothy McVeigh bombing in Oklahoma. This edited collection presents a series of cases of makeshift memorials and commemorative bricolage, bringing together death, memory, mourning, and sometimes expressing social dissent or discontent as well as grief.
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