Abstract
Since its beginnings, the discipline of anthropology has encompassed the study of death, describing the centrality of its rituals in our lives, the richness of its material culture, and its multilayered functions and meanings in societies past and present. Studying death today requires consideration of changes brought about by colonialism and its aftermath. New movements of people and new technologies create new versions and new interpretations of global and traditional practices. The agency to act in response to death and the authority to make decisions about ritual and memorialization are challenged, reasserted, and negotiated in this context of changing ideas and technologies.
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Notes
- 1.
The originality of Hertz’s approach also lies in his emphasis on this tripartite “passage,” which takes place simultaneously during the ritual process, recognizing the symbolic significance of the corpse as an embodiment of social values (Parkin 1996: 105).
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Boret, S.P., Long, S.O., Kan, S. (2017). Introduction. In: Boret, S., Long, S., Kan, S. (eds) Death in the Early Twenty-first Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52365-1_1
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