Death Flashcards
death
biologically: a physiological (and eventually taphonomic) process
socially and spiritually: an emergent phenomenon that requires witness and social consensus (biocultural concept)
Bigham
illustrates a purely biologic definition of death
- there are inevitable conflicts between death, grief, and resource constraint
- families who don’t accept brain death and insist on keeping on life support even after declared brain dead
- her cases showed irreconcilable differences between physicians and family’s narratives led to arbitration
death by consensus
contemporary Canada: death can be declared if sufficient evidence, or indirect
- only people in power can declare someone socially dead
Contemporary Japan: death is a social event and requires social consensus
automaticity
the heart’s ability to beat outside the body for a number of hours
attitudes toward organ donation: western modernist:
death=irreverisble cessation of consciousness
cartesian dualism
once brain dead, body is disposible-organs can be removed
attitudes toward organ donation: Historical Christianity
intact body is needed for ressurection
- body is buried in solid ground
attitudes toward organ donation: orthodox Judaism
body must be buries ASAP, intact
attitudes toward organ donation: Japanese Shintoism
death defined by the cessation of heart activity (brain death is insufficient)
-death is agreed by social consensus and the soul must be given time to leave the body
attitudes toward organ donation: Taoism
the intact body is the resting place for the soul
Joan Cassel
attitudes toward death and dying vary among biomed practitioners
intensivists prioritized alleviating suffering
surgeons prioritized preserving life and were suspicious of intensivists who were too keen on palliative care
palliative care
comfort care in home, hospital, or hospice
DNR orders
DO NOT RESUSCITATE. signed with family
MAID
Medical Assistance in Dying
Margaret Lock
discovered that death in Japan doesnt just affect the dead
- social event that requires social consensus
Kleinman and Small
dying is a personal and social phenomenon, not just a biological process
mortuary practice
the suite of cultural behaviours pertaining the caring for and disposing of the dead
mortuary practices include:
preparing the body
methods of disposing of the body
symbolic and religious acts for doing these processes
Nash
embalming and cremation
return to the earth practices
Tibet: Sky burials: bodies are left in the open for scavengers
NW Coast: Box and Tree Burials: entuned in a wooden box and left to decay
at sea, sacred sites or rivers, in significant landscapes: cremation and scattering
secondary burial: Wendat People
bundle burials and ossuaries
-body decays and bones are bundles up and sent to home or given secondary burial
Toraja, Indonesia
the dead are cared for until family can hold funeral
Mexico
dia de los Muertos
Catholic tradition
blessing the dead
Contemporary Indigenous traditions
ancestors as present in the landscape
mortuary practices are symbolically and socially powerful acts that :
demonstrate respect to the dead
build and reinforce the mourners’ social capital
affirm bonds among living community
sites for constructing, reinforcing, and enforcing reputations and norms
Kathleen Adams
studied exotic mortuary practices among the Sa’da Toraja
- pornographies of the macabre
osteology
skeletal biology
the biological profile
approx. age and death sex at birth appearance (body size and proportions) personal history causes of death
forensic anthropology
assembling a profile from human remains
bioarchaeology
studies the effects of life upon the skeleton
- disease/disability
- growth and development
- nutrition
- habitual behaviour
- embodiment: gender, class, ethnicity
mortuary archeology: the dead play a social role
the study of how we treat the dead
- community cohesion
- affiliation with place (cemetaries)
- expression and enforcement of social norms
mortuary treatment
the physical context and associations of the dead and the attributes of their handling and presentation
mortuary treatment reflects and affirms:
respect and care
construction of identity
continuity through time
place-making and collective memory
cosmology
conceptions of world organization, afterlife, relations with spiritual realm
Lothagam
geological formation, exposing red sediments going back to Milocene
fossils everywhere
no water or vegetation
Lothagam interpretation
pastoralist communities: they moved about but came together at death at significant places
whole community buried together
everyone had personalized gifts
some people considered exceptional-but still buried at the same location
