Caring as epistemic practice

Let me take you to the Old St. Matthews Graveyard (Alter St. Matthäus Kirchhof) in Berlin, Germany. The park-like graveyard is located in the southern city centre, Western Kreuzberg just south of the Yorkstraße for those who know Berlin. It is surrounded by typical Berlin housing from the early 20th century – four stories high (five, if you are North American) with often elaborate stucco facades, but also some much more modern pragmatic post-World War II buildings on the southern side. The graveyard blends into a well-established ‘Kiez’, i.e. one of those Berlin inner city neighbourhoods with a high degree of public familiarity ( Nast and Blokland 2014 ). Old St. Matthews graveyard was consecrated in 1856. The entire graveyard is now listed as a landmark site. Amongst its most famous ‘residents’ are the Brothers Grimm, Rudolf Virchow – who shaped social medicine in the mid 19th century treating medicine as politics by other means – and Claus von Stauffenberg, a crucial member of the Wehrmacht group unsuccessfully trying to assassinate Adolf Hitler in July 1944. All in all, the graveyard is home to around 150 historic gravestones that are not owned by descendants. 60 of these original gravestones are listed as individual pieces for their aesthetic and historic value respectively.