It's been a while since I had the time to write a post, as many know I've been tied up in my honours thesis. However, the thesis will be submitted in just a few days, so yay! It's been a long and difficult road, but it has also been incredibly rewarding and worth every step.
I would like to thank the wonderful organisations and individuals who participated. This includes Lady Anne Funerals, Mannings Funerals, and the Funeral Celebrants Association of Australia. These organisations were amazingly helpful and supportive of this project. Furthermore, I also want to thank the numerous unnamed individuals who participated in the study.
These organisations and individuals didn't just provide valuable information, they made the project mean something and turned it into something truly special. I will always be grateful to those who participated. You have been a big part of making a long and difficult path worth it.
Several people have asked where this thesis will be available, so I'll answer this quickly:
- No, the thesis will not be posted on the blog, this blog is not the right audience so there is no point putting it here. However, a short summary will most likely be posted in the future.
- The thesis will be archived in the honours room at UNSW, this is not exactly something to boast. Those that have seen the honours room or know how universities operate will understand.
- I will submit the thesis to various conferences and other places.
- Those that participated in the study 'may' receive a copy if they ask, simply email me at theothersideoffunerals@gmail.com to receive a PDF.
I will write some more posts before the end of the year, but generally there will not be much content until next year. This is because I will be relaxing, but mainly because I will also be organising some fun things for next year. There will be more on this later if it works out.
~
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
2013-11-07
2013-09-30
Honours Writing
If you'd like to help in my honours thesis you can do so by completing a survey (it should take 5 minutes). You can find information about the surveys, and links to the surveys here. It will be appreciated!
As some might have noticed my posts have dropped off recently, and I'm taking a while to reply to emails. This is due to a combination of not having time and simply being tired.
My honours thesis is at an important writing stage, I'm analysing data and putting everything together. Basically I'm writing a few thousand words a day and reading a lot. This isn't actually as big a task as it sounds. Or maybe I've simply become use to it. However, by the time I'm done writing for the thesis I am tired of writing, and so I don't feel like writing even more for the blog.
So between being busy and being drained I'm simply not generating content for the blog for a while. The thesis is due in November, so everything should be back to normal by December.
As for where the thesis will be available; any individual or organisation who has participated will be eligible to get a copy, simply email me. I will also look to get it published and submit it to conferences next year, when I finally have time for that. A summary will also be put on the blog, however this will only be short and essentially a long(ish) abstract. Other than that I have no idea at this stage, but I know the full thesis will not be put on the blog. This is simply not the right audience or place for it, a 20,000 word academic article is never going to many (if any) people reading it here.
Thank you again to those who have participated. This project would not have been possible for a large number of people and a few organisations.
~~
As some might have noticed my posts have dropped off recently, and I'm taking a while to reply to emails. This is due to a combination of not having time and simply being tired.
My honours thesis is at an important writing stage, I'm analysing data and putting everything together. Basically I'm writing a few thousand words a day and reading a lot. This isn't actually as big a task as it sounds. Or maybe I've simply become use to it. However, by the time I'm done writing for the thesis I am tired of writing, and so I don't feel like writing even more for the blog.
So between being busy and being drained I'm simply not generating content for the blog for a while. The thesis is due in November, so everything should be back to normal by December.
As for where the thesis will be available; any individual or organisation who has participated will be eligible to get a copy, simply email me. I will also look to get it published and submit it to conferences next year, when I finally have time for that. A summary will also be put on the blog, however this will only be short and essentially a long(ish) abstract. Other than that I have no idea at this stage, but I know the full thesis will not be put on the blog. This is simply not the right audience or place for it, a 20,000 word academic article is never going to many (if any) people reading it here.
Thank you again to those who have participated. This project would not have been possible for a large number of people and a few organisations.
~~
2013-09-06
Reminder - Honours Surveys
UPDATE: Surveys are now CLOSED and interviews are no longer being conducted, thank you to those who participated!
HREA Panel B approval no. 13 031
Just a quick reminder, in addition to the interviews and fieldwork I will be conducting two short surveys as part of my honours thesis. Each surveys should take 10 minutes or less, and all answers will be kept anonymous. Your participation will be greatly appreciated and will really help my study!! :)The Public Survey:
This survey is open to anyone from the general public and has never worked in the funeral industry. Answer honestly and do not worry about a 'right' or 'good' answer.
Direct link:
The Funeral Staff Survey:
This survey is open to anyone who has worked in the funeral industry in any capacity or role. Answer honestly and do not worry about a 'right' or 'good' answer.
Direct link:
Feel free to share the surveys with anyone who might be interested. You are also welcome to participate in interviews, follow the link below for more information:
All participation in this project is appreciated, if there's any further questions or comments feel free to email me via theothersideoffunerals@gmail.com.
This project is part of honours in anthropology at the University of New South Wales and has received ethics approval (approval no. 13 031) from HREA Panel B at UNSW. If there are any questions or issues you can contact me via theothersideoffunerals@gmail.com or my supervisor Dr Amanda Kearney at the University of New South Wales.
2013-08-04
Honours Surveys !
UPDATE: Surveys are now CLOSED and interviews are no longer being conducted, thank you to those who participated!
HREA Panel B approval no. 13 031
In addition to the interviews and fieldwork I will be conducting two short surveys as part of my honours thesis. Each surveys should take 10 minutes or less, and all answers will be kept anonymous. Your participation will be greatly appreciated and will really help my study!! :)
The Public Survey:
This survey is open to anyone from the general public and has never worked in the funeral industry. Answer honestly and do not worry about a 'right' or 'good' answer.
The Funeral Staff Survey:
This survey is open to anyone who has worked in the funeral industry in some capacity. Such as a funeral director, mortician, gravedigger, celebrant, etc. Answer honestly and do not worry about a 'right' or 'good' answer.
Feel free to share the surveys with anyone who might be interested. You are also welcome to participate in interviews, follow the link below for more information:
All participation in this project is appreciated, if there's any further questions or comments feel free to email me via theothersideoffunerals@gmail.com.
This project is part of honours in anthropology at the University of New South Wales and has received ethics approval (approval no. 13 031) from HREA Panel B at UNSW. If there are any questions or issues you can contact me via theothersideoffunerals@gmail.com or my supervisor Dr Amanda Kearney at the University of New South Wales.
2013-08-02
Event: Rookwood Picnic!
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| Elephant House |
This will be a small and relaxed picnic, we might even go for a walk through Serpentine Canal or explore some old areas of Rookwood.
2013-07-30
Top Ten Posts
Here's a list of my personal favourite ten posts so far. They're in no specific order and there's no exact criteria for why I chose these particular posts other than if I liked them.
2013-07-23
Research Participants Needed - reminder
UPDATE: Surveys are now CLOSED and interviews are no longer being conducted, thank you to those who participated!
HREA Panel B approval no. 13 031
The Public & Private Domains of Everyday Life: Social Sanitation & Australian Understandings of the Funeral Industry
I am looking for people to participate in my honours project! This project seeks to develop a better understanding of our society through the modern Australian funeral industry.
To do this I will need people to participate in interviews. There are two types of participants I am after; those who have direct experience working in the funeral industry (funeral staff), and others with no experience working in the industry (the general public). This project is part of honours in anthropology at the University of New South Wales and has received ethics approval (approval no. 13 031) from HREA Panel B at UNSW.
If you, or someone you know, is interested then contact me:
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Selection Criteria (for funeral participants):
- Currently based in Sydney.
- Work within the funeral industry, past or present. This can include any role with direct funeral experience. Such as an undertaker, crematorium staff, transfer crew, mortician, gravedigger, celebrants, and so on. You do not need to be directly employed by a funeral company as long as you have direct experience working within the funeral industry in some capacity.
- Aged 18 to 70.
- Potential participants who have experienced a loss of a family member or friend within the last 24 months will be excluded.
Selection Criteria (for non-funeral participants):
- Currently based in Sydney.
- Very little to no direct experience with funeral industry procedures. As in, never employed by a funeral company.
- Aged 21 to 60.
- Potential participants who have experienced a loss of a family member or friend within the last 24 months will be excluded.
- All interviews will be conducted between the 25th of June and 30th of August.
- Interviews will last 30 minutes.
- Voice recordings and written notes will be taken, no videos or photos will be taken.
- Interviews are face-to-face and semi-structured. This means there will be a set of open ended questions which the participant can direct.
- It should be noted, this project is separate from the blog and its own project done through the University of New South Wales (UNSW).
If you, or someone you know, is interested then contact me:
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
There is a copied of the project flyer below which has more information about the project. You are welcome to share this flyer (and post) with anyone who might be interested in participating.
Funeral Industry StudyHello, my name is Peter Minucos, and I am conducting a study exploring perceptions of the funeral industry in Sydney. This study will be looking at the public and private aspects of what happens after death and people’s attitudes and understandings of the industry.
This study is for the purposes of my Honours research project in Sociology and Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, and this research has received ethics approval (approval no. 13 031) from HREA Panel B at UNSW. Through this study I hope to gain a better understanding of ‘social sanitation’ within society, how undesirable processes are removed from the public. I also hope to learn more about the funeral industry itself, from how it operates to why it works the way it does.
I am seeking people and organisations willing to participate in the project and discuss their views on this topic.
Anyone interested in the funeral industry or this topic is free to participate. I am seeking anyone who might have experience relating to the funeral industry, such as having attended a funeral, or work in a funeral company. But I am also looking for anyone curious in the funeral industry. The interviews should go for no longer than 30 minutes, and there will be no compensation from participation, although it will be greatly appreciated!
If you are interested in participating please contact me with the information provided below OR if you know someone who may be interested please feel free to pass on this flyer. If you are interested you can contact me for more information on how you can participate to this research.
Or you can contact my research supervisor, Dr. Amanda Kearney.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration!
~~
2013-06-26
The New Blog Logo
As some of you have noticed the blog has a new logo, we're still tinkering with it but I'm quite happy. So I'd like to thank the person who made it. She put in hours and did around 50 different versions, all for free! Always happy to take into account my changes, however minor. She's already talking about designing other things (like business cards). If anyone needs a designer I'd highly recommend her.
Thank you, and I look forward to the other design work lined up already!
~
Thank you, and I look forward to the other design work lined up already!
~
2013-05-17
Ageism in the Industry & The Funeral Friends
Ageism is quite common within the funeral industry, I have found only a few places where it doesn't exist. So no one company is at fault really, no single company, group, or person is ageist. Instead it is an industry wide thing, ageism is an aspect of the funeral industry and not of funeral companies.
2013-05-15
Blog Stats - 13/05/13
I'm rather busy at the moment, so a breakdown of the blog stats will have to do for now. Hopefully I'll have more content up soon, but until then you can read over the stats. Yes, I do like reading stats like this, guess my psychology and social science background is a big part of who I am.
2013-04-26
Interviews Wanted!
I am looking for people to participate in interviews for the blog! If interested I explain everything in more detail below.
2013-04-19
Blog Update - Ethics Application
I am a bit busy lately (to put it mildly) and haven't had time to write much for the blog, so I will do a quick updated and explain a few things going on with my honours thesis.
2013-04-01
Hearse Month Wrap Up
Here is a nice breakdown and summary of some of the posts over last month all about the hearse (in order of my most favorite to least favourite):
- The Hearse - Telling them apart -- 11th March 2013
This is possibly the post I am most proud of in quite a while (despite the length), it hits all the objectives of the blog quite nicely and I felt was a good post overall. Basically it is a detailed post on how to identify and distinguish various hearses; it looks at important aspects of the hearse in detail (with lots of photos). So it's a great post for those who wish to understand the hearse better, or even the diversity of the Sydney funeral industry.
- Inside the Lady Anne Hearse -- 29th March 2013
In this post I look at the hearse in detail, what it is like inside and how it works. For this I use the Lady Anne Funerals hearse which they were gracious enough to let me take photos with as much as I wanted.
- Guest Post - Meeting the hearse -- 28th March 2013
Another guest post from DC, in this they discuss their first experience with a hearse and the "dos" and "donts" of driving a hearse.
- Possible reasons for diversity in the hearse -- 27th March 2013
Here I look at a possible reason why the hearse's are so diverse and different in Sydney.
- The Hearse - in the eyes of the funeral industry -- 15th March 2013
In this post I explore how the funeral industry perceives the hearse; as in what funeral staff see and think of the hearse. Their perspective is quite different to that of the public.
- Symbolism and Significance of the Hearse -- 20th March 2013
The hearse has a lot of symbolism and significance attached to it, in this post I explore some of that.
Well I was quite impressed with how this month went, it was my first experiment with having a running theme for such a long time and I think it went well. Some posts might have got become abstract, or even boring, but I had fun and proved the idea of a theme month is possible.
If anything it worked better than my regular system, the start of the month was very busy but then the rest settled down and my blog basically ran itself for 70% of the month. So this is something I will organise more of as uni continues to get busier. Not next month but maybe the month afterwards.
An~~
- The Hearse - Telling them apart -- 11th March 2013
This is possibly the post I am most proud of in quite a while (despite the length), it hits all the objectives of the blog quite nicely and I felt was a good post overall. Basically it is a detailed post on how to identify and distinguish various hearses; it looks at important aspects of the hearse in detail (with lots of photos). So it's a great post for those who wish to understand the hearse better, or even the diversity of the Sydney funeral industry.
- Inside the Lady Anne Hearse -- 29th March 2013
In this post I look at the hearse in detail, what it is like inside and how it works. For this I use the Lady Anne Funerals hearse which they were gracious enough to let me take photos with as much as I wanted.
- Guest Post - Meeting the hearse -- 28th March 2013
Another guest post from DC, in this they discuss their first experience with a hearse and the "dos" and "donts" of driving a hearse.
- Possible reasons for diversity in the hearse -- 27th March 2013
Here I look at a possible reason why the hearse's are so diverse and different in Sydney.
- The Hearse - in the eyes of the funeral industry -- 15th March 2013
In this post I explore how the funeral industry perceives the hearse; as in what funeral staff see and think of the hearse. Their perspective is quite different to that of the public.
- Symbolism and Significance of the Hearse -- 20th March 2013
The hearse has a lot of symbolism and significance attached to it, in this post I explore some of that.
Well I was quite impressed with how this month went, it was my first experiment with having a running theme for such a long time and I think it went well. Some posts might have got become abstract, or even boring, but I had fun and proved the idea of a theme month is possible.
If anything it worked better than my regular system, the start of the month was very busy but then the rest settled down and my blog basically ran itself for 70% of the month. So this is something I will organise more of as uni continues to get busier. Not next month but maybe the month afterwards.
An~~
2013-03-06
Hearse Month & No Posts This Week
My ethics stuff is due on the 5th of march, and this is the first week back to uni. So between that uni work and other stuff I'm a bit busy lately. As such there won't be any posts this week... I will instead take this week to really focus on the coming month properly.
This month will be about the hearse, all posts will focus on the hearse in some way. Basically in exploring the funeral industry I have found the Australian hearse to be often overlooked. Well, we look at it, but rarely take time to discuss it in detail.
It would be very hard to dispute the importance of the hearse for the funeral industry; it's both an emotional symbol and practical necessity. Despite this I have had issue finding much about the hearse in terms of history on the funeral industry, and the hearse is often left out of contemporary discussions about the funeral industry. We discuss the rise of cremation, space in cemeteries, merits of embalming, merchandising of funeral home, and more. So why not changes to the hearse? Why did the introduction of the duel-cab hearse get ignored? Why don't we talk about how each funeral home uses a specific brand of hearse as part of its identity?
The hearse is a vital and inseparable part of the social identity of the funeral industry. Yet somehow we have separated it from discourse about the funeral industry. So get ready, I'll be focusing on the hearse all month! Some posts might get 'theoretical' or 'abstract' as I will be looking at social imagery and theory behind the hearse. But a few should be practical and fun, and there will be nice pictures!
A big thank you to Lady Anne Funerals, once again stepping up to the mark and helping to provide quality content for the upcoming month! From photos to information they are always happy to take time and help out.
An~~
This month will be about the hearse, all posts will focus on the hearse in some way. Basically in exploring the funeral industry I have found the Australian hearse to be often overlooked. Well, we look at it, but rarely take time to discuss it in detail.
It would be very hard to dispute the importance of the hearse for the funeral industry; it's both an emotional symbol and practical necessity. Despite this I have had issue finding much about the hearse in terms of history on the funeral industry, and the hearse is often left out of contemporary discussions about the funeral industry. We discuss the rise of cremation, space in cemeteries, merits of embalming, merchandising of funeral home, and more. So why not changes to the hearse? Why did the introduction of the duel-cab hearse get ignored? Why don't we talk about how each funeral home uses a specific brand of hearse as part of its identity?
The hearse is a vital and inseparable part of the social identity of the funeral industry. Yet somehow we have separated it from discourse about the funeral industry. So get ready, I'll be focusing on the hearse all month! Some posts might get 'theoretical' or 'abstract' as I will be looking at social imagery and theory behind the hearse. But a few should be practical and fun, and there will be nice pictures!
A big thank you to Lady Anne Funerals, once again stepping up to the mark and helping to provide quality content for the upcoming month! From photos to information they are always happy to take time and help out.
An~~
2013-02-05
Facebook Graph Search: Useful research tool
A while ago Facebook announced the new 'Graph Search' feature, which I paid little attention to at the time. Recently however, I had a look at it and it looks incredibly useful to me, and to the funeral industry. So I thought I would share it with others who might not be aware of it.
2013-01-31
Update - Missing Photos
As some have noticed a few photos are missing, which I am aware of and is deliberate. Quite a while ago I filled up my photo allotment, the Picasa web album only allows about 1GB of pictures for free. I started uploading new photos to another free online image hosting site "postimage", and moving some of the older popular ones to here.
While this works well enough it does not allow bigger images, physically or size wise, for example I cannot upload panoramic images through this site. So I have been removing old images that get no views, to make space on the Picasa album for the large images postimage cannot host. Simply put these images are not worth the time it would take to convert them over to postimage, they are going from the blog.
As such quite a few images are already "missing", not because they are lost or someone has asked them to be removed. But because I am making space for newer and better content. I do really appreciate people have noticed this, as it shows others not only read my blog, but take time to help out!
Anyway, if you notice a missing photo and feel like letting me know do so, but it will be common on older and unread posts and is a deliberate thing.
An~~
While this works well enough it does not allow bigger images, physically or size wise, for example I cannot upload panoramic images through this site. So I have been removing old images that get no views, to make space on the Picasa album for the large images postimage cannot host. Simply put these images are not worth the time it would take to convert them over to postimage, they are going from the blog.
As such quite a few images are already "missing", not because they are lost or someone has asked them to be removed. But because I am making space for newer and better content. I do really appreciate people have noticed this, as it shows others not only read my blog, but take time to help out!
Anyway, if you notice a missing photo and feel like letting me know do so, but it will be common on older and unread posts and is a deliberate thing.
An~~
2013-01-28
Blog Stats - 28/01/13
Time for another blog stats breakdown, as I continue to find this interesting and useful. This moth was actually quite surprising in a few ways.
2013-01-05
2012-12-21
2012-11-26
Blog Stats - 26/11/12
Time for the monthly breakdown of views. I find doing this is actually interesting, and helpful in many ways. Hopefully others find it as interesting or informative as I do!
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