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• 1 media/pathway.jpg 2016-04-29T12:19:31-07:00 Introduction 17 image_header 2016-05-11T14:22:38-07:00 Death is a natural and universal process. All living things die, including humans, and we have developed a variety of ways of dealing with and applying meaning to both the social and physical processes of death. Different groups conceive of death and corpses differently, assigning unique meanings that often reflect societal understandings of the natural world. Processes of corpse care and disposition serve to connect the living and the dead, and to imbue corpses with social meaning. In the United States, there are numerous ways people approach the physical realities of death and relate to corpses. Using this understanding, one may employ deathways as a lens through which to examine the varied ways people in the United States relate to the “natural world.” These varied deathways, or culturally contingent ways of developing knowledge about and navigating the physical realities of death, reflect the varied ways people relate to and conceive of nature.
  
  Like many parts of American culture, the contemporary, mainstream method of corpse disposition has resulted from around 150 years of technocratic progress and industrialization. The bureaucratized and professionalized funeral industry parallels modern ways of interacting with and connecting to nature. This approach to death care and corpse disposition is not universal in the United States, and some groups are quite critical of it.
  
  Advocates for natural burial and death positivity argue for rethinking American deathways. This takes different forms, with the natural burial movement arguing for a more ecological approach within the current system. People who align with death positivity, on the other hand, argue for a restructuring of the death care industry, and question whether a profit-driven institution provides the best way to engage with death and corpses. These two movements reflect discourse in the broader cultural context about how Americans might live more ecologically, and whether capitalism is a structure that can exist sustainably.
  
  Of course, there are cultural groups in the United States who have long traditions of dealing with death in ways not characterized by Western narratives of technology and progress. One such group is the Blackfeet, who engage with death in ways that are informed by their traditions of story and ceremony, and which reflect their distinct and culturally significant ways of relating to the natural world.
  
  These varied approaches to deathways perform naturework through imbuing the natural processes of death, such as decomposition, with cultural meaning. How do different death and burial practices separate the living and dead from, or connect them to, the “natural” world? In this same vein of questioning, deathways can also be understood to reinforce or challenge the Western conception of a human-nature dichotomy. Corpses do not fit nicely into this binary idea of humans separate and independent from the natural world. Rather, they can be understood to straddle the line between social and natural, existing in a sort of liminal stage – no longer human, but still recognizable as belonging to the social world previously. 
  
• 1 2016-04-29T12:31:32-07:00 Natural Burial and the Death Positivity Movement 7 plain 2016-05-03T11:57:50-07:00
  • Green/natural burial, and death positivity, have become topics of public discourse in the last several years, pushing back against the norms of the last 100 or so years. While not the same movement, the two are intertwined. Both reframe understandings of death, social meaning of corpses.
    • Green burial argues for a more ecological approach to burial, specifically moving away from embalming and concrete vaults.
    • Still manifests with some bureaucratic/capitalist limitations
      • Green Burial Council – certifies cemeteries, funeral homes, and product manufacturers as being “environmentally friendly” – working within current system
      • Individual responsibility for ecological consumption – stays within realm of capitalism, doesn’t aim for systemic change
        • Palus, 2014, “How to be Eco-Friendly When You’re Dead”
  • Death positivity is broader, advocating for a less bounded and more personal approach to deathways. Leaders in the death positivity movement (such as Caitlin Doughty, founder of the Order of the Good Death, and author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes) press for (1) Less separation of the living and the dead; (2) More individual, hands-on experiences with corpse care; (3) Increased dialogue about innovative options for corpse disposition (Order of the Good Death 2016)
    • See increased exposure to and experience with death as a positive, life-enhancing thing – much like the need to be more engaged with nature, avoid sedentary lifestyles – being in nature makes us happier, and thinking about and relating closely to death makes us happier
  • The green burial and death positivity movements reflect current discourse about human-nature relations.
    • Sustainability goals – aiming to “fix” current system to be more ecological; green capitalism
      • Parallel to green burial – keep current system in place, with regulations and certifications to guarantee some level of “green”
      • Continues commodification, capitalistic system
    • Questioning of and resistance to current system – connect/parallel with social ecology
      • Social ecology as a system of study and thought that considers ecological problems as social problems first; social ecologists advocate for participatory democracy at municipal level as way to develop more agency for individuals and communities, develop methods of actual self-governance (not representative), local control of resources, etc. (Eiglad 2015)
        • Parallel to death positivity – advocating for more agency in the dying and death care process, questioning the need for a credentialed, professionalized system
          • [quote from Doughty 2014 about not needing death professionals for a lot of things – other than embalming, cremation, not much that you actually need someone else to do]
            • [reference to some of the main pages on Order of the Good Death]
  • Connect this section with Tsing’s ideas somehow?