Preliminary Programme

Tue 13 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Wed 14 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Thu 15 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Fri 16 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

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Tuesday 13 April 2010 10.45
A-2 CUL12 Dead Bodies, Identity and Society
Auditorium, muziekcentrum
Network: Culture Chair: Marga Altena
Organizers: - Discussant: Marga Altena
Ilona Kemppainen : Death and Social Stratification
In this paper I look at the changes which have occurred in Finnish and other European burial traditions in the past 150 years. They are not, and have not been in the past, only a personal choice but a matter of strict regulation, both official and unofficial. They also showed ... (Show more)
In this paper I look at the changes which have occurred in Finnish and other European burial traditions in the past 150 years. They are not, and have not been in the past, only a personal choice but a matter of strict regulation, both official and unofficial. They also showed a person’s social status and wealth, both in the choice of the gravesite but also in the burial rituals and the wake.

The so-called silent burial belonged for the poorest who could not pay for rituals and also for suicide victims, criminals and the like. The opposite of silent burial was an honourable burial, which was supposed to be the normal death ritual but which was possible only for those who could afford it. Many working-class people had no extra savings and left no inheritance.

By the end of the 19th century the workers’ sickness and funeral funds had begun to diminish the differences between social classes. Larger funerals and more elaborate ritual became possible for poor people. What is interesting, the silent burial – meaning very small and private funerals – became common among the upper classes after the World War II.

Large funerary rituals have often been seen as a proper and even therapeutic medium for grief and mourning, although for example David Cannadine has argued against this thought. Yet these rituals are not only expressions of emotion but also a part of social life and its expressions of good taste and social standing. When church legislation no longer kept different kinds of people separate in death as they had been in life, social stratification was sustained by other means.

People had been buried differently according to their background for centuries, so this was nothing new but its consequences were. In this process the western culture lost its connection to death, the very thing that death rituals were supposed to deal with. (Show less)

Marcel Reyes-Cortez : Socialising the Dead: Material culture and photography in the cemeteries of Álvaro Obregón, Mexico City
Current discourse of cemeteries and spaces dedicated to housing the dead suggest that the spaces of the dead have negligible amounts of social interaction and minimal daily ritual activity between the dead, the living and the space. Urban spaces dedicated to the dead are asserted to be non-social spaces.

My project ... (Show more)
Current discourse of cemeteries and spaces dedicated to housing the dead suggest that the spaces of the dead have negligible amounts of social interaction and minimal daily ritual activity between the dead, the living and the space. Urban spaces dedicated to the dead are asserted to be non-social spaces.

My project explores how the spaces of the dead, like Panteón San Rafael and el Jardín in Álvaro Obregón, Mexico city are clear examples of active ritualised social spaces, in which the memory and identity of the dead and their living are recalled and memoralised through quotidian and annual contemporary secondary mortuary rituals, material culture and the increasing use of photographic imagery. My paper explores the social currents and day-to-day interactions with its visitors, mourners and workers as well as the array of complex levels of sociability found in the urban spaces of the dead in a saturated megalopolis.

The research uses collaborative visual methods, analysis, combining still photography with other more established ethnographic research methods in order to expand and enrich the field experience and analyse the growing but permanent use of material culture and the social conditions that have been developed in the special spaces of the dead in Mexico City. This includes investigation of life histories of the people who visit and work in the private and public spaces of the dead and the exploration of urban contemporary Mexican funerary practices in a megalopolis. (Show less)

Isabel Richter : Postmortem-Portraits: intercultural comparisons in the early history of photography
This paper engages the subject of performance and ritual by analyzing specific body performances in the history of early photography: it will, thus, compare postmortem-portraits taken in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Austria), in the United States, and in Mexico in the second half of the nineteenth century.
As has been extensively documented, ... (Show more)
This paper engages the subject of performance and ritual by analyzing specific body performances in the history of early photography: it will, thus, compare postmortem-portraits taken in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Austria), in the United States, and in Mexico in the second half of the nineteenth century.
As has been extensively documented, the history of early photography and the history of death are closely connected. This is not only owing to the well-known medial affinities (1) between dearth and photography but also due to the chief subject of analysis. After the patenting of Daguerre’s process in 1839, portraits — in conjunction with subjects such as architecture, urban spaces, and landscapes — became one of the the central motifs in early photography.
Since postmortem-portraits are well-known in the United States and in Great Britain (2), recent studies mostly refer to American and British material (3). My aim, however, is to explore the presence of such portrait form in other European countries with a Christian majority and in Mexico. In this paper I will present three common versions of corpses as portraiture: in deathbed-photographs, in the performance of the dead body as a form of „sleeping beauty“, or in a pose that can be described as „dead yet alive“. It is relevant to note that, in some cases, postmortem-photographs present the deceased surrounded by family members and mourners. Contextualizing some pertinent methodological concerns from within visual history and visual anthropology, the paper will not only focus on the visual performance of the individual dead body but also on the question of the specific way(s) in which mourning rituals are represented. Grounded through reflections on the socialhistorical background (photographers, prices, production process, confessional background etc.), the paper will thus explore not only cultural fantasies related to this form of photography but also engage with the question of the ways in which visual history can provide insights into studying the cultural history of death and the history of the body in the nineteenth century. (Show less)



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