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Book Cover
E-book
Author Allison, Anne, 1950- author.

Title Being dead otherwise / Anne Allison
Published Durham : Duke University Press, 2023

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 241 pages) : color illustrations
Contents Ambiguous bones : dead in the past -- The popular industry of death : from Godzilla to the ending business -- Caring (differently) for the dead -- Preparedness : a biopolitics of making life out of death -- The smell of lonely death and the work of cleaning it up -- De-parting : the handling of remaindered remains -- Automated graves : the precarity and prosthetics of caring for the dead
Summary "With an aging population, declining marriage and childbirth rates, and a rise in single households, more Japanese are living and dying alone. Many dead are no longer buried in traditional ancestral graves where their descendants would tend their spirits and individuals are increasingly taking on mortuary preparation for themselves. In Being Dead Otherwise Anne Allison examines the emergence of new death practices in Japan as the old customs of mortuary care are coming undone. She outlines the new proliferation of industries, services, initiatives, and businesses that offer alternative means for tending to the dead, ranging from automated graves, collective gravesites, and crematoria to one-stop mortuary complexes and robot priests. These new burial and ritual practices provide alternatives to the long-standing traditions of burial and commemoration of the dead. In charting this shifting ecology of death, Allison outlines the potential of these solutions to radically reorient sociality in Japan in ways that will impact how we think about death, identity, tradition, and culture in Japan and beyond"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on February 13, 2023)
Subject Death -- Social aspects -- Japan
Death care industry -- Japan
Funeral rites and ceremonies -- Japan
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Death & Dying.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural
Death care industry
Death -- Social aspects
Funeral rites and ceremonies
Manners and customs
SUBJECT Japan -- Social life and customs -- 21st century
Subject Japan
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2022040879
ISBN 9781478024415
1478024410