Life and Death
Life and death are broad categories across anthropological sub-disciplines (especially biological, medical, and social-cultural), and the many articles, reviews and fictional works on these topics published by Cultural Anthropology reflect this rich ethnographic diversity. Life connotes vitality, energy, spirit, animacy, continuity, generation, and organismic being, demarcated as durational existence from nascent cellular and social development to expiration. Potent in structural theory, they are often placed in an ultimate binary with phenomenological and symbolic correlatives of light:dark, up:down, movement:inertia, wellness:illness, and good:evil. Death has been given richer anthropological analysis in studies of religion and ritual-the latter recently noted by Jackson (2011) as a management and re-distribution of "life-energy"-as have the process of dying and experiences of mourning and loss on personal and collective levels. As life and death are conventionally associated as with the human body and its developmental progression across the life course, there has been ample concern for understanding dimensions of selfhood, personhood and the subjectivities of bodily individuals. Anthropologists, however, have pushed beyond seeing life and death as a simplistic beginning and end, a singular alpha and omega. Rather than polarized ontological extremes, life and death are both substance and process, the contours of which are consistently reshaped by social, political and symbolic actions. Temporally, they are never static, but variably extended, contracted, and suspended in techniques of power. Pushing beyond the limits of the present, visible body, has been productive for feminist and cyborg anthropologists to question lives amid structural and political violence. The bodily experience of violence has been traced to state, nongovernmental, and corporate institutions and logics of race, gender, ethnicity and class. A renewed interest in philosophies of sovereignty and (neo-) vitalism (Bataille, Deleuze, Agamben), have placed life and death at the theoretical forefront, raising questions of how power, governance and structural conditions enable certain lives to flourish and others to dissipate. The ethnographic project becomes evermore critical in documenting loss of life under bio-, thanato- or necro-political regimes of power (Foucault, Rabinow, Mbembe). Finally, making some subjects—both human and non-human—more alive or lively than others also speaks to questions of power, namely, bio-scientific power/knowledge systems whose discourses and capacities to maneuver the impermeabilities and malleabilities of organismic entities have brought forth new forms of relatedness, reproduction, and forms of life itself. While continuing certain conversations in anthropologies of medicine, the body, religion, power and violence, an anthropology of life and death expands our theoretical-philosophical foundations and engages the political in fresh and nuanced directions. (Casey Golomski)
Ritual, Religion, Cosmology
Dying, Mourning, Loss
Bodies, Self and Personhood
Violence, Sovereignty and Biopolitics
Enlivening Subjects: Bio-science, Relatedness and Reproduction
Ritual, Religion, Cosmology
More Alive than all the Living: Sovereign Bodies and Cosmic Politics in Buddhist Siberia
Anya Bernstein
Cultural Anthropology May 2012, Vol. 27, No. 2: 261-285
The Headless Horseman of Central India: Sovereignty at Varying Thresholds of Life
Bhrigupathi Singh
Cultural Anthropology May 2012, Vol. 27, No. 2: 383-407
Witchcraft, Bureaucraft, and the Social Life of (US)Aid in Haiti
Erica Caple James
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2012, Vol. 27, No. 1: 50-75
Gifts Intercepted: Biopolitics and Spirit Debt
Jean M. Langford
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 4: 681-711
Versions of the Dead: Kalunga, Cuban-Kongo Materiality, and Ethnography
Todd Ramon Ochoa
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2007, Vol. 22, No. 4: 473-500
The Funeral and Modernity in Manjaco
Eric Gable
Cultural Anthropology Aug. 2006, Vol. 21, No. 3: 385-418
Burying the Past: Locality, Lived History, and Death in an Aymara Ritual of Remembrance
Andrew Orta
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2002, Vol. 17, No. 4: 471-511
Echoes of a Yolmo Buddhist's Life, in Death
Robert Desjarlais
Cultural Anthropology May 2000, Vol. 15, No. 2: 260-293
Consuming Pity: The Production of Death among the Cashinahua
Cecilia McCallum
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 1999, Vol. 14, No. 4: 443-471
Second Lines, Minstrelsy, and the Contested Landscapes of New Orleans Afro-Creole Festivals
Helen A. Regis
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 1999, Vol. 14, No. 4: 472-504
A Carceral Regime: Violence and Social Memory in Southwest China
Erik Mueggler
Cultural Anthropology May 1998 Vol. 13, No. 2: 167-192
Dying, Mourning, Loss
Suicide, Risk, and Investment in the Heart of the African Miracle
Julie Livingston
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 4: 652-680
Gifts Intercepted: Biopolitics and Spirit Debt
Jean M. Langford
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 4: 681-711
Love's Labor Paid for: Gift and Commodity at the Treshold of Death
Ann Julienne Russ
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2005, Vol. 20, No. 1: 128-155
Echoes of a Yolmo Buddhist's Life, in Death
Robert Desjarlais
Cultural Anthropology May 2000, Vol. 15, No. 2: 260-293
Death and the Minyan
Jonathan Boyarin
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 1994, Vol. 9, No. 1: 3-22
Death and Memory: From Santa María del Monte to Miami Beach
Ruth Behar
Cultural Anthropology Aug 1991, Vol. 6, No. 3: 346-384
Consuming Desires: Strategies of Selfhood and Appropriation
Jonathan Friedman
Cultural Anthropology May 1991, Vol. 6, No. 2: 154-163
How to Die in America
Stanley Diamond
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 1986, Vol. 1, No. 4: 447-448
Bodies, Self, and Personhood
Symptoms of Another Life: Time, Possibility, and Domestic Relations in Chile's Credit Economy
Clara Han
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2011, Vol. 26, No. 1: 7-32
Making Time for the Children: Self-Temporalization and the Cultivation of the Anti-suicidal Subject in South India
Jocelyn Lim Chua
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2011, Vol. 26, No. 1: 112-137
Physical Training, Ethical Discipline, and Creative Violence: Zones of Self-Mastery in the Hindu Nationalist Movement
Arafaat A. Valiani
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2010, Vol. 25, No. 1: 73-99
Suicide, Risk, and Investment in the Heart of the African Miracle
Julie Livingston
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 4: 652-680
Gifts Intercepted: Biopolitics and Spirit Debt
Jean M. Langford
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 4: 681-711
The Elegiac Addict: History, Chronicity, and the Melancholic Subject
Angela Garcia
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2008, Vol. 23, No. 4: 718-746
Contingent Selves: Love and Death in a Buddhist Society in Nepal
Ernestine McHugh
Cultural Anthropology May 2002, Vol. 17, No. 2: 210-245
Echoes of a Yolmo Buddhist's Life, in Death
Robert Desjarlais
Cultural Anthropology May 2000, Vol. 15, No. 2: 260-293
Consuming Pity: The Production of Death among the Cashinahua
Cecilia McCallum
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 1999, Vol. 14, No. 4: 443-471
Violence, Sovereignty, Biopolitics
Dengue Mosquitos are Single Mothers: Biopolitics Meets Ecological Aesthetics in Nicaraguan Community Health Work
Alex M. Nading
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2012, Vol. 27, No. 4: 572-596
A Kidnapping in Basra: The Struggles and Precariousness of Life in Postinvasion Iraq
Hayder Al-Mohammad
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2012, Vol. 27, No. 4: 597-614
More Alive than all the Living: Sovereign Bodies and Cosmic Politics in Buddhist Siberia
Anya Bernstein
Cultural Anthropology May 2012, Vol. 27, No. 2: 261-285
The Semiotics of Security: Infectious Disease Research and the Biopolitics of Informational Bodies in the United States
Carlo Caduff
Cultural Anthropology May 2012, Vol. 27, No. 2: 333-357
Scientific Sovereignty: How International Drug Donation Programs Reshape Health, Disease and the State
Ari Samsky
Cultural Anthropology May 2012, Vol. 27, No. 2: 310-332
The Headless Horseman of Central India: Sovereignty at Varying Thresholds of Life
Bhrigupathi Singh
Cultural Anthropology May 2012, Vol. 27, No. 2: 383-407
Witchcraft, Bureaucraft, and the Social Life of (US)Aid in Haiti
Erica Caple James
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2012, Vol. 27, No. 1: 50-75
Physical Training, Ethical Discipline, and Creative Violence: Zones of Self-Mastery in the Hindu Nationalist Movement
Arafaat A. Valiani
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2010, Vol. 25, No. 1: 73-99
Gifts Intercepted: Biopolitics and Spirit Debt
Jean M. Langford
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 4: 681-711
Post-Pasteurian Cultures: The Microbiopolitics of Raw-Milk Cheese in the United States
Heather Paxson
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2008 Vol. 23, No. 1: 15-47
Pastoral Power in the Postcolony: On the Biopolitics of the Criminal Animal in South India
Anand Pandian
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2008 Vol. 23, No. 1: 85-117
Biopolitical Beijing: Pleasure, Sovereignty, and Self-Cultivation in China's Capital
Judith Farquhar and Qicheng Zhang
Cultural Anthropology Aug. 2005, Vol. 20, No. 3: 303-327
Doctors, Borders, and Life in Crisis
Peter Redfield
Cultural Anthropology Aug. 2005, Vol. 20, No. 3: 328-361
A Carceral Regime: Violence and Social Memory in Southwest China
Erik Mueggler
Cultural Anthropology May 1998 Vol. 13, No. 2: 167-192
Executing Ethnicity: The Killings in Suriname
Richard Price
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 1995, Vol. 10, No. 4: 437-471
How to Die a Dope Fiend
Charles Pearson and Phillipe Bourgois
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 1995, Vol. 10, No. 4: 587-593
Bloody Memories: Encountering the Past in Contemporary Poland
Jack Kugelmass
Cultural Anthropology Aug. 1995, Vol. 10, No. 3: 279-301
Sarcophagus: Chernobyl in Historical Light
Adriana Petryna
Cultural Anthropology May 1995, Vol. 10, No. 2: 196-220
Death and the Minyan
Jonathan Boyarin
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 1994, Vol. 9, No. 1: 3-22
Enlivening Subjects: Bio-science, Relatedness, Reproduction
The Semiotics of Security: Infectious Disease Research and the Biopolitics of Informational Bodies in the United States
Carlo Caduff
Cultural Anthropology May 2012, Vol. 27, No. 2: 333-357
Scientific Sovereignty: How International Drug Donation Programs Reshape Health, Disease and the State
Ari Samsky
Cultural Anthropology May 2012, Vol. 27, No. 2: 310-332
Articulating Potentiality: Notes on the Delineation of the Blank Figure in Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Mette N. Svendsen
Cultural Anthropology Aug. 2011, Vol. 26, No. 3: 414-437
The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography
S. Eben Kirksey and Stefan Helmreich
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2010, Vol. 25, No. 4: 545-576
Suicide, Risk, and Investment in the Heart of the African Miracle
Julie Livingston
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 4: 652-680
On the Trail of Living Modified Organisms: Environmentalism within and against the Neoliberal Order
Thomas Pearson
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 4: 712-745
Four Genealogies for a Recombinant Anthropology of Science and Technology
Michael M.J. Fischer
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2007, Vol. 22, No. 4: 539-615
Fluid Labor and Blood Money: The Economy of HIV/AIDS in Rural Central China
Shao Jing
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2006, Vol. 21, No. 4: 535-569
Mutant Ecologies: Radioactive Life in Post-Cold War New Mexico
Joseph Masco
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2004, Vol. 19, No. 4: 517-550
"Empty Cradles" and the Quiet Revolution: Demographic Discourse and Cultural Struggles of Gender, Race and Class in Italy
Elizabeth L. Krause
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2001, Vol. 16, No. 4: 576-611
After Culture: Reflections on the Apparition of Anthropology in Artificial Life, a Science of Simulation
Stefan Helmreich
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2001, Vol. 16, No. 4: 612-627
Phantom Limbs and Invisible Hands: Bodies, Prosthetics, and Late Capitalist Identifications
Diane M. Nelson
Cultural Anthropology Aug. 2001, Vol. 16, No. 3: 303-313
Cyborg Violence: Bursting Borders and Bodies with Queer Machines
Anne Allison
Cultural Anthropology May 2001, Vol. 16, No. 2: 237-265
Technologies of Everyday Life: The Economy of Impotence in Reform China
Judith Farquhar
Cultural Anthropology May 1999, Vol. 14, No. 2: 155-179
"Indian Blood": Reflections on the Reckoning and Refiguring of Native North American Identity
Pauline Turner Strong and Barrik van Winkle
Cultural Anthropology Nov. 1996, Vol. 11, No. 4: 547-576
Gender, Genetics, and Generation: Reformulating Biology in Lesbian Kinship
Corinne P. Hayden
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 1995, Vol. 10, No. 1: 41-63
Dyssimulation: Reflexivity, Narrative and the Quest for Authentic "Living History"
Richard Handler and William Saxton
