**9. Conclusions**

At the end, it is time to look back: with an integrated approach that combines strategies from the tradition of symbolic anthropology and history, we have traced the development of a specific cemetery, Tongerseweg in Maastricht (The Netherlands), over the course of two hundred years, and we have suggested a model that can capture the complexities of cocreating the cemetery as an internally diverse ritual arena (in the sense of ritual space-in-potentiality).

In line with our approach, the method relies on thick description; if we were to locate our research on a spectrum between idiographic and nomothetic approaches, it would definitely stay close to the idiographic end. In what sense, then, can our results be said to have a more general applicability and where are the limitations? Obviously, our research project has focused on a highly complex, culturally diverse society. Also, the existence of different professional and nonprofessional roles bearing on Cemetery Tongerseweg has been taken as a given. Clearly, not all societies are so complex and culturally diverse, and not all societies have so clearly differentiated professional and nonprofessional roles. In short, the same issues may not arise in less diverse and less differentiated societies, and they may not arise where cemeteries are not constructed to aggregate different groups in society as Cemetery Tongerseweg was, in an effort to build a municipal cemetery in a largely Roman Catholic society following French regulations and expectations at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Having said that, the applicability of the arena model does extend beyond the specific case of this cemetery, for contingent historical reasons. Since the late eighteenth-century, Enlightenment inspired rulers and administrations all over Europe proposed a new spatial concept of burial grounds. Driven by hygienic concerns and scientific modes of management and rational organization, these reform movements sought to replace monoconfessional church-owned graveyards with modern cemeteries of a supraconfessional impetus. In France, Prussia, Austria, Russia and many other states, the symmetrical

outlook of burial sites became a visible marker of progress and modernization. This benchmark of best practice was not implemented everywhere, of course. However, in expanding urban areas, it became the standard with some regional variations. The Maastricht case shows an adaptation of this pattern.

Where does the applicability of our model end? This is hard to tell in the abstract. As we have shown, the model derives from the specific case of Tongerseweg Maastricht. It certainly applies to other cemeteries in Europe. Further research would be needed to tell whether or not the Arena Model of ritual space is applicable further afield, and which changes would be necessary for it to be heuristically and analytically useful in different circumstances.5

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, all authors; methodology, all authors; software, M.W.; validation, all authors; formal analysis, all authors; investigation, all authors; resources, all authors; data curation, all authors; writing—original draft preparation, C.J. and E.V.; writing, C.J., S.K., T.K. and M.W.; review and editing, C.J. and E.V.; visualization, T.K.; supervision, E.V., C.J. and S.K.; project administration, all authors; funding acquisition, C.J., E.V. and S.K. All authors have read and agreed to this version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA), grant number Hera.2.078, project 'Cemeteries and Crematoria as Public Spaces of Belonging in Europe (CeMi)'.

**Acknowledgments:** We are grateful to Servé Minis of the municipality of Maastricht for his historical insights into the cemetery, to the general management and volunteers of Cemetery Tongerseweg for sharing their knowledge and experiences, to Tam Ngo for identifying the Chinese-Vietnamese graves as Hoakieu, to Elise Aghazarian and others for information on the Maastricht Armenian community, and to Korrie Korevaart and Bert Lever of Foundation Terebinth for Funerary Heritage for organizing a symposium and a guided tour at Cemetery Tongerseweg on 24 August 2019 (attended by E.V. and M.W.). All authors wish to express their gratitude to cemetery staff and volunteers who help to maintain and develop a unique cultural heritage site in The Netherlands. The authors also wish to express their gratitude to Avril Maddrell (Reading), leader of the CeMi project, for her support: *nihil sine labore eius*.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funder had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.
