Stele, ivy and chrysanthemum. Producing and controlling funerary landscapes in the 21st century.

This thesis examines the influence of ecology, as a body of knowledge and practices appropriated by those involved in the development of funerary spaces, in the contemporary evolution of the forms of the French communal cemetery and the practices that take place there. For half a century, French cemeteries have been characterized by their heavily mineralized appearance, and now they are caught up in a general movement to green public spaces, which aims to respond to contemporary planning issues (particularly in urban environments) using concepts and considerations sometimes loosely inspired by the field of scientific ecology. This general movement is helping to change the place occupied by nature in funerary spaces, by introducing new forms of living things. This renewal of nature's presence implicitly carries the project of a renewal of the place of the dead and decomposing body within the environment, and, through the consequent evolution of the funerary landscape, the project of an evolution of the relationship to death.

This thesis project is based on a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, which aims to inventory the evolution of French cemeteries, estimate the impact of development policies, and question their social, cultural and anthropological consequences. Methods from the exact and experimental sciences (faunistic and floristic inventories, remote sensing) will be used to objectivize changes in the funerary landscape, while methods from the social and human sciences (semi-directive interviews, content analysis, questionnaires) will be used to gain a more detailed understanding of how these changes have been experienced, interpreted, celebrated or rejected. The chosen conceptual framework draws on three major groups of thinkers: intellectuals versed in the semiotics of the late Thirty Glorious, such as Jean Baudrillard or Roland Barthes, whose concepts enable a fine analysis of the meaning of physical productions; post-modern intellectuals, such as Bruno Latour or Philippe Descola, who enable the Nature/Culture boundary to be overcome; finally, thinkers of landscape decomposition and abandonment, such as Robert Smithson or , essential to understanding the role that the natural plays in the production of a mortifying landscape.

The chosen terrain is that of the Metropole of Lyon, made up of a composite group of 59 communes, all of which respond in different ways to ecological imperatives and questioning; the city of Lyon, in particular, has been a pioneer in the greening of cemeteries, via a partnership with the Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux, which has advised the local cemetery management in the choice of their layouts. In some communes, cemeteries are small-scale facilities, often located away from the urban center, while the city of Lyon has four cemeteries, three of which are larger than 15 hectares. These cemeteries, integrated into the urban fabric, are an integral part of the city, and their uses are sometimes difficult to reconcile, raising the question of the future of intra-urban cemeteries and the roles that can be assigned to these spaces. Lastly, recent changes in the way territorial administration works have also paved the way for the emergence of large inter-communal cemeteries, located on the bangs of urban space, and questioning the ability of the inter-communal scale to make territory.

Under the supervision of Yves-François LE LAY and Lionel LASLAZ.

Thesis defended September 25, 2025.

Link to theses.fr: https://theses.fr/2025ENSL0034