Spontaneous Shrines

Leaving flowers, candles, teddy bears, hearts, or cards on sites where people died a violent death has become a regular practice since the 1990s, at least in the Western world. In academia, it has become custom to refer to such commemorative sites as “spontaneous shrines,” a term coined by Jack Santino. Murders, traffic deaths, work-related accidents, terrorist attacks, or disasters of human or natural origin may trigger people to bring attributes to the place of mischief in commemoration of the deceased. Other deaths that may evoke similar responses are the deaths of public figures (celebrities, royalty, politicians), although spontaneous shrines will generally appear on places associated with the deceased rather than on the place of their death.

All spontaneous shrines, whatever the reason of their taking shape, share the public dimension: exceptional deaths of ordinary people in the public domain as well as natural deaths of public people in the confinement of their private domains are “public events.” This explains why people without a formal or personal relationship with the deceased may feel invited or compelled to express their grief, anger, or empathy in public. Many of the attributes that constitute spontaneous shrines are also placed on graves. However, spontaneous shrines differ from graves in three important respects. First, there are no bodies. Second, the public dimension sets spontaneous shrines and related ritual apart from funeral ritual, which is usually confined to the intimate sphere of friends and relatives. Third, spontaneous shrines arise on neutral, public places that are not formally reserved for mourning.

Disagreements over Terminology

Santino chose the adjective spontaneous to highlight the unofficial nature of the commemorations performed. No authorities or institutional organizations initiate or encourage the erection of spontaneous shrines; instead, such sites result from people's personal motivations. Some scholars have objected that spontaneous shrines are not the outcome of “instantaneous” impulses, however, and approach spontaneous shrines as ritualized practices. In this view, spontaneous shrines, irrespective their unofficial nature, arise along the lines of what people deem to be the most appropriate and customary response to violent deaths. To avoid misinterpretations, scholars often choose other adjectives instead of spontaneous, most of which emphasize the transient nature of such sites. Makeshift memorials, ephemeral memorials, or temporal memorials are other expressions to refer to the same phenomenon, and may also be used in common language.

Approaching these sites as places of communion between the dead and the living, Santino prefers the term shrine above memorial. Shrines share this ability to offer communion with all other material objects and places that carry memories of the dead. Therefore, this communal quality is not specifically restricted to shrines. Monuments, memorials, and graves also connect the dead with the living through a physical location. Understanding why certain places continue to attract people over long periods of time while others pass into oblivion requires social, cultural, religious, and political [Page 893]contextualization. Many scholars writing on the subject prefer the term memorial above shrine because the religious connotations of the term may contain the danger of obscuring significant differences in practice, form, and experience with unambiguously religious sites.

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