IS THE DEAD STILL AMONG US? A STUDY OF THE PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY POSTHUMOUS KINSHIP

Abstract

Death is feared for the losses it brings. Physical death creates a tear the social fabric (Huntington and Metcalf 2015), as the deceased is forcefully dislodged from the larger pattern of social relations. With the physical loss of the individual, the incontrovertibility that once structured particular socialites has suddenly become challenged. These losses are perhaps most keenly felt within the family. Both traditional and modern theoretical perspectives on death has pointed to both religion and science (Walter 1996) to explain the fear of death and bereavement. Just as death is theorized as a “series of losses” Borgstrom (2017), bereavement whether funeral rituals (Tong 2004) or personalized grief rituals (Sas and Coman 2016), is understood as a “liminal phase” (Huntington and Metcalf 2015) for the social body to reorder itself without the deceased. Such a theoretical framing of death has resulted in the “impersonality of dying and the loneliness of bereavement” (Walter 1996:185). As Walter further notes, the postmodern turn has shifted the theoretical context of death from the religious community and hospital towards the family (1996:194). Hence, extending Carsten’s (2004) processual theory of kinship, this thesis adopts a poststructuralist perspective to question these fundamental theoretical approaches to death. Through a reflexive, collaborative research approach, changes that death creates on everyday kinship practices are examined to highlight the how the dead’s enduring sociality continues posthumously and in turn alters the anthropological understandings of a bereaved family.