Contemporary Mainstream American Deathways
- History of modern deathways (Modernity: Deathways often informed by empiricism, rationalism [scientific knowledge and institutions])
- Deathways in mainstream contemporary America are standardized and commodified. People tend to die in hospitals, and their corpses are then transported to funeral homes where most are embalmed for short viewings, then cremated or buried (Doughty 2014). This is a change from the 19th century, when most corpses were cared for by their family and/or community. In modern America, most people feel intense discomfort at the idea of touching or interacting with any corpse, including that of a loved one.
- Professionalization of funeral processes/institutional boundaries
- Rigorous (though porous) boundaries surrounding corpse care and disposition – credentialed experts (Cahill 1995)
- Application of logic of science and rationalization to death process / establishment of science
- Interview with Bob Warnock, Kimball Funeral Home
- Commodification of death / alienation of corpses from social and ecological contexts
- $20.7 billion a year industry, providing products and services
- Salvage accumulation – corpses not an inherent part of capitalist system, but there’s a multi-billion dollar industry built from their care and disposal
- Alienation of corpses occurs through the professional and cultural boundaries surrounding coprse care and disposition – bureaucratization
- $20.7 billion a year industry, providing products and services
- Embalming only became a mainstream process after Civil War, into the early twentieth century (Cahill 1995)
- Historically families and communities cared for unpreserved bodies, typically keeping them on ice to reduce rate of decomposition
- Naturework: technology as mediator
- Now most corpses in American have their blood removed and replaced with preservative fluids, using specialized technology (Doughty 2014)
- Embalming results in a simulacrum of the living person, before death
- Much like our relations with nature, individual and social relations with death and corpses in mainstream USA are overseen, curated, and regulated by credentialed experts and agencies.
- Cemeteries as curated semi-natural spaces – designed and manicured much like typical parks – but have very limited functionality
- This has changed over time - cemeteries historically served as gathering places
- Natural/wilderness areas – managed specifically by agencies with credentialed experts; lay people only allowed access under certain circumstances, may only interact with landscape in approved ways
- Cemeteries as curated semi-natural spaces – designed and manicured much like typical parks – but have very limited functionality
