Cultural attitudes towards death practices, the body after death and life after death in deceased organ donation - a UK Polish migrant perspective

Previous studies have found the perception of the body and death practices can have an influence on perceptions of deceased organ donation. This is the first study in the UK to investigate the views of the Polish migrants, a fast growing community, toward organ donation, death practices and the deceased body. In total, there were 31 participants that took part in the study in one-to-one interviews or small focus group interviews that lasted approximately 1½ hours. The majority were conducted in English and 1 focus group and 7 interviews were in Polish. The interviews were recorded with permission from the participant, transcribed and analysed using grounded theory analysis. Participants believed the body was seen to be useful for others in need of organs after the individual had died. Families were thought to struggle with saying ‘goodbye’ if it was perceived the deceased individual was to ‘live on’ in the recipient. Participants highlighted that within Polish culture, funerals were organised quickly and opencasket burials were common, however these practices would not hinder donation. Being aware of this community's perspective may aid healthcare professionals when discussing deceased organ donation with potential donor familie

Contemporary Death Practices in the Catholic Latina/o community

This article is an initial review of the everyday death and bereavement practices of the United States Latina/o community, and is meant to serve as an initial corrective to the traditional studies of American death that present death from a largely Anglo and Protestant perspective

Sustainable death? Promoting adoption of green passing

Death practices are a highly individual and sensitive, but also strongly social and socially regulated issue. Passing rituals and types of burials have developed over centuries, and their significant environmental cost is rarely discussed. In this paper, we propose an intervention that aims to open up the conversation about green passing practices and help reduce the environmental impact of current death practices in the United Kingdom. We used the multilayered installation design approach, leveraging activity theory and installation theory to identify relevant stakeholders and entry points for intervention. We then developed a holistic intervention strategy subsumed under the green passer Initiative, which proposes intervention into burial practices at the physical, social, and embodied level. We illustrate the intervention strategy with three ideal-type journeys of future green passers and outline relevant implications for policy makers, researchers, and the general public

Death-scapes in Taipei and Manila: a postmodernnecrography

This paper analyses changing geographies of disposal in the urban centres of Taipei in Taiwan and Manila in the Philippines, specifically shifts from burial to cremation and the extent to which such shifts reflect changing patterns of residence, fraternity, mobility and conceptions of locality in both places. In this essay the term 'postmodern' will refer not to a body of theory but to material transformations in the structuring of the economy and polity marked by migration from rural areas to cities and the production of places and localities where 'traditional' signs of hierarchy, memory and belonging appear to have been abolished. It has been claimed that the analysis of social practices surrounding death 'throws into relief the most important cultural values by which people live their lives and evaluate their experiences' (Huntingdon and Metcalf 1979: 25). However, I shall argue that conventional anthropological approaches to death practices – which tend to focus on ritual rather than the sites of disposal – need radical revision in order to satisfactorily account for the kinds of changes that are specified over the course of this essay. Indeed, the privileged contextual horizon for conventional anthropological and sociological approaches to death, dying and disposal has been the concept of 'culture'. I will argue that the structuring of contemporary death rituals in both Taiwan and the Philippines is not local culture but rather, on the one hand, the modern state that seeks increasingly to intervene and regulate the minutiae of daily life and, on the other, the 'market' which continuously opens up new areas to the grasping hand of capital accumulation

Institutionalized Individuality: Death Practices and Afterlife Beliefs in Unity Church, Unitarian Universalism, and Spiritualism in Santa Barbara

Both scholars and the larger public are becoming more interested in death rituals and afterlife beliefs as demonstrated by emerging scholarly panels and conferences on the topic and popular books that are topping the best-seller lists. This interest coincides with polls that show increasing numbers of nonreligious people in the United States. Where do people who fall into this “nonreligious” category—including those that are “spiritual but not religious,” unaffiliated, atheist, agnostic, and others—turn when considering ontological questions about death and afterlife? One possibility is toward American liberal religious institutions such as Unity Church, Unitarian Universalism, and Spiritualism. Through ethnographic research at these three institutions in Santa Barbara, I examine the way in which the individual and the group interact to understand afterlife beliefs and death rituals. Unity Church of Santa Barbara, the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, and the Spiritualist Church of the Comforter each has flexible guidelines and leadership training that invites the integration of personal afterlife beliefs and death rituals within an institutionally agreed-upon framework. These are sites of meaning-making for those that are religious or “spiritual but not religious.” Here, beliefs about the afterlife and expectations surrounding death rituals are actively explored through interactions with other members, ritual attendance, and personal experiences of loss

‘Do you all want to die? We must throw them out!’: Class Warfare, Capitalism, and Necropolitics in Seoul Station and Train to Busan

The undead, and the notion of life beyond death, have long been important components of gothic literature, and, arguably, this is increasingly the case in modern popular culture. Carol Margaret Davison has noted that ‘many gothic works meditated on death and death practices as a signpost of civilisation’. This essay explores the ways in which ‘undead practices’ function as a signpost of social inequality in a society, with zombie narratives as a useful tool for theorising death and death practices. In particular, the link between zombies and necropolitics (where it is decided which people in society live and which will die) is made explicit in the South-Korean films Seoul Station and Train to Busan. As I argue here, in these films, zombies are culturally representative for a South-Korean audience that is viewing them, and moreover, are connected to South-Korean death practices. I argue that these films highlight important necropolitical practices in South Korean society today, with South-Korean audiences experiencing these zombie narratives differently to models outlined in previously published work on Western consumption of zombie narratives

Dust in the Wind? The Bell Tolls for Crematory Mercury

Part II of this Comment outlines the toxicity and behavior of mercury. Part III asserts that cremation is a significant and growing source of mercury pollution. Part IV describes the current regulatory atmosphere for crematory mercury vapor: the federal government’s decision to leave it largely unregulated and the efforts of a few states, including Maine, Minnesota, and Colorado, to begin tackling this problem. Part IV also contains a case study discussing whether agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area of California are effectively addressing crematory mercury. Part V explores the options of either capturing mercury emitted from crematories or pulling teeth containing dental amalgam fillings prior to cremation. It also includes an assessment of our collective capacity to change cultural death practices in order to address this threat. Part V concludes with a mention of two alternatives to cremation: green burial and promession