![]()
In his collection of short stories “Blind Willow: Sleeping Woman” (p. 289) the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami (2007) writes “Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it” (np). It is that complex, almost paradoxical, juxtaposition of life and the end of life, and how that becomes manifest through the events that mark such connections, that acts as the locus of our attention in our book. It is also that curious juxtaposition that constitutes a work’s introduction. Quite often it forms the last substantial piece of writing for a book. As the work comes to an end, we begin the process of articulating its beginning. With that in mind, we will begin by sharing something of the birth of the book you are now reading.
As an editorial team we have different points of entry into our shared interest in death. We bring to bear a curious and fruitful confluence of practice and theory, of spiritual and pragmatic considerations attached to managing events marking the end of life and a conceptual fascination with the ideas of absence and presence. Both of us have encountered death in a variety of forms, both personal and professional, and those encounters find echoes throughout the current work. The foundation upon which the conversation led to proposing that we co-edit a book on death and events, whilst not the root of our individual interest in death itself, was at one of those briefings to students who are about to commence their work on their final year dissertation. It was during that seminar that one of us let slip that they had an interest in ways that the end of life was marked, how they were articulated, and were manifest as events. Whilst this produced a few nervous giggles amongst some of the students present, and just a hint of eye rolling from several colleagues (there they go all weird again), at least one person there gave a big smile, a brace of thumbs up, and mouthed ‘me too’.
There followed excited meetings over coffee in one of the university’s coffee areas (something that, in the current climate, seems like a lifetime ago), where we began to share ideas of a possible collaboration. We had both, previously, worked on a book chapter (Dowson & Lamond, 2018) that had focused on points of similarity and difference between religious and protest events. That experience had established we both worked on a similar wavelength, despite the superficial differences between us. One is an ordained minister in the Church of England, the other – though not militantly so – a committed atheist. The former’s openness and, it may be said, radicalism in their faith, and the latter’s fascination with ideas in all their variety, established a space where communication was free and full of shared respect for the other. Ideas around establishing a conference to pursuing a special issue of some academic journal were floated and gained some traction before some subtle twist made that opportunity seem less realistic.
In September 2018 we attended the Death and Culture II conference at the University of York, which fired us both up. It consolidated a feeling we had begun to share, that the route we needed to follow was to edit a book that would draw on perspectives from within and without event studies and event management. We were drawn to curate a published work rather than simply produce one. It would be fitting to say the rest is history which, though correct in a strict sense, does little justice to the patterns that history wove.
In an intentionally ironic turn, we sent out an initial call for chapters around Easter of 2019. Having both worked on books before our expectations for a significant response from this first call were not high. A satisfying smattering of seven or eight chapters at this round would have been most satisfactory. Our experience did not marry up with that expectation. We did not hit that anticipated seven to eight chapters. In common parlance, we smashed it. In place of wondering what we could do to build up to something that would be of book length, we were confronted with almost 70 abstracts, all of which displayed a richness of interest, a diversity of perspective, and an outstanding level of scholarship. Neither of us had realized there would be such an enormous level of interest in the interaction between death and event studies. Though we had to, we were both reluctant to turn any proposed chapter away. Our first response was to draw in as many proposed chapters as possible. Consequently, our first attempt was to suggest a two-volume work, with each one containing 15 short chapters. The first volume would be more closely aligned to one of the editors’ natural inclination, which was towards social/cultural theory and anthropology, whilst the second would have played to the strengths of the other, and their wider experience and knowledge of event management studies. Though disappointed, we were advised that a two-volume work was not a viable proposition. Undeterred we re-assessed those submissions and revisited our proposal, tightening it into a single volume that traversed a slightly wider area than the initially conceived first volume, whilst still having a resonance that would impact the thoughts that had informed the second.
Anyone that has worked on a publishing project will recognize that things very rarely go to plan; the journey of the current work was no exception. The impact of the global pandemic did not leave publishing unscathed. During the summer of 2020, in what was, for the UK, an easing of restrictions and a vein hope that things may be on a path to some form of normality, the series we had initially been accepted for was discontinued, and we were having to look for a new publisher. Both editors share an interest in adopting a critical perspective to the study of events, a theme we will return to shortly, which drew us towards the Routledge Advances in Event Research series. As a series it draws on multidisciplinary and inter-disciplinary perspectives in events research, one that resonated with our vision for the work.
The echoes of the pandemic, however, were not merely felt in the book’s progress. In various ways many of our contributors were also impacted as cases of infection, and the number of those dying because of the virus, grew. It is with something akin to triumph that we now see the birth of this work. Contributors confronted many challenges to share their work with us, and, through us, with you. We are very grateful to them for facing those struggles and persevering with the work in such difficult times.
Conceptually, the volume works at the intersection of death studies and a critical approach to event studies (more commonly referred to as critical event studies, or CES), as such, some time discussing that orientation has merit.
Events, whether they are orientated to the large-scale shaping and coordination of space or to small-scale and more intimate contexts, make a significant contribution to how we understand ourselves and the communities of which we are part. They are experientially complex and diverse, producing what can be construed as highly textured evental landscapes (Lamond & Moss, 2020) that traverse the real and the imaginary (Lacan, 2016), the virtual and the actual (Deleuze, 2014). By adopting a perspective that both crosses disciplinary boundaries and disrupts them, we are led to an understanding of ‘event’ which moves it away from one which holds that a singular narrative can adequately articulate any event meaningfully. Such a position, which is both trans-disciplinary and post-disciplinary, is replaced in CES by one that views ‘event’ as multiple, resonating within the complexities of the cultures and cultural political economies (Sum & Jessop, 2013) in which they are manifest, where superficial simplicity is replaced by nuance and complexity.
Critical event studies seeks to examine the complexity of events through the application of diverse lenses that concentrate on the relationships that constitute such evental landscapes. In doing so it can facilitate fresh perspectives on the relationships of power and regimes of legitimation that shed light on the hegemonic structures and discursive practices that frame our interactions with others, with institutions, and with those wider contexts in which we participate. In this book, death is examined from such a socio-cultural evental perspective. Drawing on the empirical and conceptual work produced by an international body of researchers, this book represents the first publication to look at death, dying, memorialization, and their mediation, with a CES orientation. By placing the contributions of these scholars together, the book provides a unique opportunity to instigate an international, critical discussion, around the connectivities associated with death and the events that mark the end of life.
Unlike other publications in the areas of either event studies or death studies, this book places events associated with death and its marking at its heart. In so doing it demonstrates how a deeper and richer understanding from both death and event studies can reach far beyond either of those fields, individually, to touch other areas of scholarly research, ones that cut across the social sciences and the humanities. In bringing together discussions around death from both fields, it contributes a new dynamic to conversations around the manifestation, representation, and mediation of the ways in which death is marked and celebrated. Through the synergies arising from the confluence of those two domains, it facilitates opportunities for new approaches to research in both event studies and death studies that will benefit both academic researchers and students interested in those areas of enquiry.
The book is split into four themed sections. In turn, each will address a wider focus. Over three chapters, Part one (Individual Connections) will consider connections to death, and the evental landscape associated with its articulation and manifestation, at a level closer to individual experience. The discussion articulated in this part of the book will be more tightly focused on more personal responses to encountering the events marking the end of life.
In Irina Zamfirache’s chapter, Funerals as a social process: rituals and symbols in rural and urban funerals, she explores the social processes related to death and funerals, including those that define death as a system (Kastenbaum, 2016) and the social roles of those who are involved in the indirect act of dying and managing of the body. The study of the interaction with the funeral home, the grave diggers, and the priests, from a sociological and anthropological point of view, emphasizes the phenomenon of mortality. Death, as is understood and experienced by the community, the process of passing into non-existence, and the mourning are also addressed. The social significance and attitudes regarding the idea of death and funerals are analysed from a sociological perspective (Walter, 2008). The dimensions of the phenomenon are two folded – the collective mentalities, on the one hand, maintain the taboos and the mystification of the events (Becker, 1973), but modernity, on the other hand, shapes the social imagination of the individuals and depersonalizes death.
The way in which the social imaginary on death is built (Arries, 1982), the socialization and internalization of the idea of death, the funerals, the period of mourning, as well as specific rituals, symbols and customs will be studied, based on the assumption that they are socially and culturally mediated. Using case studies of rural and urban areas in Romania, we compare two different relations with death and the events related to death: a personal, rural, highly ritualized, mystic event and a depersonalized, internalized urban experience.
From a consideration of the imaginary of death in rural and urban funerals in Romania, Shaikh Mohammad Kais relocates us to the Santals of Bangladesh. In his chapter Dying with dignity: perception of good death among the Santals of Bangladesh he argues that, in general, the concept of a good death is fluid and highly individualized, based on one’s perspective, role, and experience. A particular event of death can be viewed differently, either good or bad, from different perspectives – that of a patient, family, healthcare provider, nurse, physician, or the public. However, cultural, and religious norms, values, and practices play a crucial role in shaping a person’s expectations about death. The Santals are the second largest ethnic minority group in Bangladesh. Like in other cultures, the phenomenon of death is not easily discussed in the Santal community. The Santals tend to be sensitive, embarrassed, and fearful about discussing their own death openly. In recent decades, the Santals of Bangladesh have endured significant social transformations by means of mass Christianization, which marked a decline in their traditional beliefs and ritualistic practices. Their conversion to Christian faith has brought about major changes in their perception of life, death, and hereafter.
His chapter studies how the Santal people perceive a good death. For his study, field-level data were collected from a Santal settlement in Rajshahi district of northern Bangladesh. This research finds that the Santals’ perception of death – as both a process and an event – is influenced by several socio-economic and religious factors. Their understanding of a good death also entails their pre-, during, and post-death experiences and expectations. This study is an attempt to reveal the distinct views of traditional (animistic or Hinduized) and Christian Santals about what constitutes a good death. The research thus unfolds a hitherto under-explored socio-psychological question in ethnic Bangladesh.
This section concludes with Memorial spaces of the necropolis: the case of Novodevichy Cemetery by Maria Kucheryavaya. In her study she analyses one of the Moscow cemeteries, which has become a cultural and educational site and a popular tourist destination. Her research, which is based on a study of the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, uses a qualitative methodology: in-depth interviews with cemetery visitors and long-term observation on the territory of the necropolis. She argues that observing the practices of perception of the new cemetery space, as well as the interaction of visitors with individual graves and tombstones allows us to achieve a better understanding of the mortuary and memorial culture of modern Russia. She is interested in how the special semantic space of the necropolis functions, how it is established as a (non-)contradictory space, which elements constitute it (be it specific practices or the special nature of material objects), and how in the production of this space the boundary between the sacred and profane is transformed.
Her chapter defines the necropolis through three characteristics based on the theoretical resources of cultural sociology: myth assigned to the necropolis; materiality of the necropolis; and agency. The work is based on two hypotheses. First, a supposition that the separation of the cemetery as a memorial space and as a tourist space is not limited to one of these models, excluding the other. Second, the tourist logic of cemetery consumption does not mean desacralization of its space. With the emergence of a tourist, the cemetery does not stop being a place that accumulates memory: only the form in which this memory is perceived and transmitted changes.
The three chapters that make up Part two (Impact on the community) move from that tighter, more localized, focus, to consider the construal and manifestation of death, and its marking, to a wider, communal, context. Arnar Arnason and Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson’s chapter has as its point of departure the tensions around the ‘event’ in two distinct, if related, literatures. First: the long-standing insistence evident in social scientific studies of death, going back to Hertz and Durkheim, to think of death as a lengthy social process and to do so against a modern, Western, medico-legal emphasis on death as a biological event. That tension is made more palpable with the development of cadaver organ transplantation that necessitates a deliberate muddying around the notion of death, specifically death as a single event. Second: two related and ongoing debates in trauma studies that both relate to the notion of the event. On the one hand there is a debate around whether trauma should be regarded always as the result of specific events, or if trauma should be extended to cover consequences of ongoing systematic processes. On the other hand, there is a debate around whether trauma should be regarded always as the result of an external event, or if trauma can be linked to fantasies and the memory of events, rather than only the event as such. Underlying different positions in these debates are different assumptions about the human being, the individual, social relations, and about death. It is these assumptions that this chapter investigates. It does so by relating ethnographic material on natural disasters in Iceland and the perceptions of and reactions to those disasters. Careful attention will be given to the language used locally to discuss disaster. Those disasters have been linked with trauma and have been represented as singular events that variously must not, or should not, be repeated even as they evoke memories of earlier events. Interrogating them is employed as an opportunity to reflect on death, trauma, and the event.
In Ritualized death in Eastern and Islamic culture: “...
