For An Anthropology of The Senses of Death: Investigating the Sensitive Relationships Between the Living and the Dead in Thanatopraxy.

Abstract

This article exposes a reflection on the living and the dead, focusing on thesensorial aspects of the relationship between them. Despite death being an oldtopic in anthropology, most studies in the disciplinefocus either on collectiverepresentations of thepost-mortemor on funeral rituals, leaving in the backgroundthe material condition of the dead, expressed by the presence of their corpse. Morethan a mere object of reflection and/or intervention, the corpse sensitizes those whotouch, look and smell it. Such relationsdo not occur outside the scope of culture:nowadays, death has become a matter of medicine, and the handling of corpseshas come to be carried out by qualified individuals. Thanatopraxy is one of themany services created to deal with the dead body. In order to deepen theunderstanding of the relationships between the living and the dead, an anthropologyof thesensesof deathis defended here, that is, an investigation of how the livingfeel the dead, with thanatopraxy as a prolific case of study.