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The social agency of dead bodies

Article  in  Mortality · November 2010

DOI: 10.1080/13576275.2010.513163

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Mortality, Vol. 15, No. 4, November 2010

The social agency of dead bodies

SHEILA HARPER
University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

ABSTRACT This article promotes Alfred Gell’s theory of agency (1998) as an important framework
that can be used to inform research in the field of Death Studies. Gell argues that agency can be
abducted from objects via relationships between four ‘terms’ (indexes, artists, recipients and prototypes)
and that these relationships can take multiple forms depending on which of the terms is positioned as
‘agent’ and which is positioned as ‘patient’. These relationships can be further understood in light of
Gell’s concept of intentional psychology, as will be discussed below. In order to explicate the value of
Gell’s theoretical model, I will employ it in an analysis of ethnographic fieldwork data, collected in a
funeral home in the United States and a funeral directors’ in England, that examine viewing practices
of the recently dead between the moments of death and of final disposal. In so doing, I will argue that
Gell’s theoretical model provides a valuable framework for understanding the relationship between the
living and the dead, particularly when it is mediated by the visible dead body.

KEYWORDS: Alfred Gell; agency; intentional psychology; dead body; death ritual; viewing
practices

Introduction
The intention of this article is to promote Alfred Gell’s (1998) theoretical model as
a useful framework for those researching in the area of Death Studies. To so do, I
will employ Gell’s framework to argue that the dead body can be a social agent
within different contemporary Western mortuary rituals. Although there are many
ways in which dead bodies have been displayed within the public sphere, this
article will focus on the role of the dead body as it is displayed in its most mundane
settings (the American viewing room and English chapel of rest) and will consider
how meaning and value are ascribed to the physical remains of recently dead
bodies by mourners during the earliest days of bereavement. This article is based
on a comparative research project that included two periods of ethnographic
research, one in a funeral home in the United States (identified herein as ‘Blake’s
Funeral Home’) and one in a funeral directors’ in England (identified herein as
‘Durnford Funeral Directors’). The comparative and ethnographic research
design facilitated an examination of the variation in how the dead body is included
within the two death rituals; it therefore enables a consideration of whether

Correspondence: E-mail: sheila.harper@sydney.edu.au

ISSN 1357-6275 (print) ISSN 1469-9885 (online) Ó 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13576275.2010.513163
 The social agency of dead bodies 309

mourners in the two locations have different socially prescribed experiences of the
dead body during the liminal period between the moments of death and of final
disposal. Findings from this study demonstrate that viewing in the United Sates is
a social event to which members of the deceased’s family, friends and broader
community are invited to participate communally; in England, viewing is a private
activity, typically undertaken only by the deceased’s immediate family and closest
friends, either individually or in small groups. Despite differences in the nature of
the event, viewing the dead body occurs in both settings with frequency. The data
collected from this project will be examined in light of Gell’s theoretical model,
and the use of this model will demonstrate that mourners include the dead body as
an active social agent within the death ritual. In turn, the use of this data will
demonstrate that Gell’s theoretical model should be considered a valuable
framework for Death Studies scholars as it furthers existing conceptions of the
dead body, which are outlined in the next section.

The dead body

The dead body has been theorised as many things: an unwelcome reminder of
decay (Featherstone, 1982/1991), a site of information and contested interests
(Prior, 1989), a failure of the body project (Shilling, 2003), a symbol of pollution
(Douglas, 1966), a symbol of political order (Verdery, 1999), a disruption of order
(Douglas, 1966; Kristeva, 1982), a symbol of self (Synnott, 1992), the termination
of self (Giddens, 1991; Shilling, 2003), a piece of unwanted matter (Parker
Pearson, 1982), and a presence that manifests an absence (Hallam & Hockey,
2001). Howarth (2001, p. 120) identifies the dead body as signifying ‘the loss of
self and the loss of individuality – the material reality of death. As such, the dead
body, once a symbol of natural order, now has a debstabilizing [sic] effect on social
order’. She goes on to argue that because dead bodies are seen as polluting,
mourners in ‘contemporary Western societies’ elect to award custody of the corpse
to professionals, and concludes by stating that:

despite a cultural perception of the corpse as polluting, bereaved people

continue to be emotionally attached to the body of their loved one. It is for this
reason that death educators and counsellors recommend viewing of the dead
body. This is thought to have a cathartic effect on the bereaved. (Howarth,
2001, p. 121)

Despite the variety in these characterisations, there are few who acknowledge that
the dead body is not a uniform entity but one that might represent different things
to different people at different points in time. Verdery (1999, p. 29) argues that
dead bodies are symbolically effective precisely because of their ‘capacity to evoke
a variety of understandings’. Prior (1989) notes that the dead body is a site of
information for the state while at the same time being a site of personhood for
mourners. Hallam et al. further discuss the negotiation of meaning by
problematising ‘the event or process we call ‘‘death’’ and the thing we call a
‘‘dead body’’’ (Hallam, Hockey, & Howarth, 1999, p. 64), arguing that ‘death’
310 S. Harper

cannot be identified as a ‘straightforward moment or event which coincides with

an obvious set of organic changes within the living body’ (Hallam et al., 1999, p.
66). The dead body, therefore, only comes into being as ‘an outcome of the social
relations through which the categorisation of death is negotiated’ (Hallam et al.,
1999, p. 69). This categorisation can happen on the part of anyone involved,
including medical professionals, death professionals and mourners; thus, they
demonstrate how dead bodies can be ascribed different meanings and values by
different people and groups. These authors further differentiate between the
unprepared corpse as a ‘disordered and dangerous object’ and the prepared dead
body as an ‘extension of self’ (Hallam et al., 1999, pp. 132–138). R. Williams
(1990, pp. 142–148) contrasts conflicting attitudes about the post-mortem self,
the soul and the corpse to examine mourners’ perceptions of the dead body. He
notes that mourners differentiate between the dead body as something sacred, and
the dead body as something that must be disposed of in order to ‘minimise
problems for the living’1. Hallam and Hockey (2001) discuss how items such as
relics and memento mori, both types of dead body, blur the line between what
constitutes ‘object’ and what constitutes ‘subject’.
Another category of ‘dead body’ is the ancient human remains uncovered by
archaeologists, that are studied and displayed or stored in museums, university
departments, and the like. These dead bodies, so different from the recently-dead
discussed above, also bear consideration within the context of this article as they,
too, have been theorised in different, and often conflicting, ways. On the one
hand, they can be understood as ancestors. On the other, they can be understood
as material objects: tools that provide the contemporary world with information
and insight into the world(s) of the past, since they are the bodies of individuals
who were at one time living social agents2. Some archaeologists, along with social
anthropologists, are keen to contextualise these bodies within their live counter-
part’s contemporaneous society and funeral ritual, not only in order to understand
the past, but also to be understood as having had agency within that past:

Archaeologists and forensic/physical anthropologists have been interested in the

form and materiality of bones: their composition, the marks upon them and
their emplacement in the earth. Past lives somehow dwell in the substance of
these bones and, if they are properly studied, these past lives may become
known, right down to the details how people looked, what they ate, what
diseases they suffered and injuries they sustained, and even how they,
themselves, related to their dead. (Bones Collective, 2009; see also Parker
Pearson, 1999)

In his discussion of early Anglo-Saxon cremation rites, H. Williams (2004, p. 265)

argues that human remains should not be considered as ‘simply another form of
material culture manipulated by the agency of mourners’. Drawing on Hallam and
Hockey (2001), he asserts that ‘the corporeal presence of the dead provides an
agency to affect the experience and actions of mourners and evoke memories of
the past, rather than service as a static and passive set of substances manipulated
and disposed of by mourners to serve their sociopolitical ends’ (H. Williams,
 The social agency of dead bodies 311

2004, p. 265). Thus, he argues that contemporary theories of agency can (and
should) be employed to theorise the role of the dead body within ancient funeral
rites.
By acknowledging that the dead body is not a uniform entity but one that can
hold a multiplicity of meanings and therefore be different things, we move towards
the concept of the dead body as a social agent. In the next section, I provide a
comprehensive outline of Gell’s theoretical model of agency. This may seem facile
to those familiar with Gell’s work; however, I have deliberately provided herein its
fundamental ‘nuts and bolts’ for those who have not yet encountered this
theoretical model. I will then employ the framework to demonstrate how agency is
abducted from the dead body by mourners who have contact with it, by providing
examples from ethnographic data collected at a funeral home in the United States
and a funeral directors’ in England. In so doing, I contribute to the growing body
of research that challenges the pervasive notion of the dead body as ‘object’. I
believe Gell’s theory to be invaluable for those working within Death Studies
because it provides a framework for understanding the relationship between the
living and the dead, and in providing such a detailed explanation it is my hope that
this article will be a useful introduction for those unfamiliar with his work.

The abduction of agency

In light of the discussion above, the nature of what constitutes a dead body is thus
problematised: it can range from ‘object’ to ‘subject’, as it is imbued with traits,
characteristics and meaning. This becomes evident when interactions that include
the living and the dead are observed, and is particularly salient in settings such as
the American viewing room and the English chapel of rest. In order to understand
the role of the dead body within the liminal period, a theory that addresses the
subjective nature of objects provides an appropriate framework within which to
consider the relationship between mourners and the dead body. To this end,
Alfred Gell’s (1998) anthropological theory of agency can be effectively applied.
Gell’s theory is situated within the discourse of art history. He argues that works of
art, or ‘art objects’, act as social agents within a network of social relationships
(Gell, 1998, p. 5). This is possible if art objects are understood to possess agency;
an agency, Gell suggests, that exists within art objects intrinsically and regardless
of cultural conventions. This theory is in sharp contrast to theories of art based on
semiotics, which promote the ‘reading’ of art objects as ‘texts’3. Gell dismisses the
semiotic model, stating that the:

‘action’-centred approach to art is inherently more anthropological than the

alternative semiotic approach because it is preoccupied with the practical
mediatory role of art objects in the social process, rather than with the
interpretation of objects ‘as if’ they were texts. (Gell, 1998, p. 6)

To explain how objects form an active part of social relationships, Gell develops a
relational theory of agency based on the interaction between four ‘terms’ (index,
312 S. Harper

artist, recipient, prototype), any of which can play the role of ‘agent’ (that which
performs social action) or ‘patient’ (that upon which the agent acts) (Gell, 1998,
p. 26). He defines these four terms as follows:

1. Indexes: material entities which motivate abductive inferences, cognitive

interpretations, etc;
2. Artists (or other ‘originators’): to whom are ascribed, by abduction, causal
responsibility for the existence and characteristics of the index;
3. Recipients: those in relation to whom, by abduction, indexes are
considered to exert agency, or who exert agency via the index;
4. Prototypes: entities held, by abduction, to be represented in the index,
often by virtue of visual resemblance, but not necessarily. (see Gell, 1998,
p. 27)

The interaction between these four terms is possible due to a cognitive process
Gell labels ‘abduction’, explained by Osborne and Tanner as:

a particular kind of cognitive operation, a probabilistic mode of inference, for

example that a smile suggests a friendly person. It thus differs from strictly
causal inference, or from purely logical deduction. The interpretation of the
smile involves an abduction specifically of ‘agency’, implying some social other,
with will and intentions, and the capacity to act in relation to, and thus affect as
‘patient’, the observer who has made the abduction. (Osborne & Tanner, 2007,
p. 11)

Layton further expounds Gell’s meaning of abduction by stating that, as it is a

cognitive operation, the agency of indexes ‘derives from the way in which they
affect the mind of the recipient’ (Layton, 2003, p. 455). It is important to note
that Layton’s main criticism of Gell’s theory is the latter’s assertion that
‘abduction is a form of inference that does not derive from knowledge of cultural
convention’ (Layton, 2003, p. 454, emphasis added), and not his conception
more generally4.

Gell’s nexus
If an agent is anything that ‘‘‘causes events to happen’’ in their vicinity’ (Gell,
1998, p. 16), and a patient is ‘the object which is causally affected by the agent’s
action’ (Gell, 1998, p. 22), it is clear that agents act on patients by virtue of the
patient’s abduction. Any one of Gell’s four terms can be positioned, within
abductive social relationships, as either agent or patient. To elucidate how the
social relationships between the four terms function, Gell develops what he calls
the art nexus. This is a system by which he classifies the multiplicitous
relationships that can occur between the four terms when any of the four is in
either the ‘agent’ and/or ‘patient’ position (Gell, 1998, p. 29). A simple agent-
patient relationship can be defined, for example, as follows. If the index is in the
‘agent’ position, and the recipient is in the ‘patient’ position, denoted by the
 The social agency of dead bodies 313

formula Index-A à Recipient-P5, this refers to a relationship in which the

recipient, who ‘allows his or her attention to be attracted to an index, and
submits to its power, appeal, or fascination, is a patient, responding to the
agency inherent in the index’ (Gell, 1998, p. 31). In this relationship the
recipient abducts the agency of the index. Conversely, if the relationship places
the recipient in the position of ‘agent’ and the index in the position of ‘patient’
(denoted as Recipient-A à Index-P), this describes an interaction in which the
index abducts the agency of the recipients, as the recipients ‘attribute creativity
to themselves as spectators, who ‘‘make something’’ out of the raw material
presented to them’ (Gell, 1998, p. 34). There are 16 basic combinations that the
nexus accounts for6.
Building upon this basic premise, Gell is able to describe increasingly
complicated relationships involving the four terms. In order to accomplish this,
he differentiates between primary agents, which he defines as ‘intentional beings
who are categorically distinguished from ‘‘mere’’ things or artefacts’’’ (Gell, 1998,
p. 20) and secondary agents, defined as ‘entities not endowed with will or
intention by themselves but essential to the formation, appearance, or manifesta-
tion of intentional actions’ (Gell, 1998, p. 36). It is important to clarify that the use
of the qualifier ‘secondary’ is not intended to trivialise or lessen the agency of the
term to which it relates:

In speaking of artefacts as ‘secondary agents’ I am referring to the fact that the

origination and manifestation of agency takes place in a milieu [between
primary agents and primary patients] which consists (in large part) of artefacts,
and that agents, thus, ‘are’ and do not merely ‘use’ the artefacts which connect
them to social others. (Gell, 1998, p. 21)

He further explains that indexes are normally secondary agents, ‘[borrowing] their
agency from some external source, which they mediate and transfer to the patient’
(Gell, 1998, p. 36). With these different degrees of agency, the social relationships
between Gell’s terms become numerous and more complex. Within the confines
of this article, I will limit myself to the consideration of one of these permutations,
namely that which allows the recipient to abduct the agency of the prototype, as it
is mediated by the artist and index:

[[[Prototype-A] ð Artist-A] ð Index-A] à Recipient-P.

This relationship is defined by Gell as follows:

The index in the above formula is not acting on the recipient autonomously. It
may be the focal carrier of agency, but it is servicing to mediate other types of
agency affecting the patient/recipient. [. . .] The index is an agent with respect to
the recipient by virtue of the fact that the recipient abducts the agency of the
artist from it. The index is an agent (with respect to the recipient) but it is
simultaneously a patient, with respect to the agency of the artist, which it
mediates. This ‘indirect’ relationship between the recipient as patient and the
artist as agent is expressed in our formula via the brackets. [. . .]
314 S. Harper

Finally, in the above formula, the prototype also makes an appearance as an

agent with respect to the artist, the index, and the recipient. This can only occur
when the abduction is made that the activities of the artist are subordinated to
the prototype, for example, to the appearance of the prototype, as in realistic
forms of art, such as portraiture. From a certain point of view, a portrait is an
index of the appearance of the sitter, mediated by the artist’s performance in
creating an index, which mediates the prototype’s appearance to the recipient.
The sitter’s appearance caused the index to appear as it does. (Gell, 1998,
pp. 51–52)

Applying the theory

Working with Gell’s model, and employing the idea of primary and secondary
agents, it becomes clear how such a theory can be removed from an art historical
context and applied successfully to the situation of viewing a dead body during the
liminal period of the death ritual. Indeed, when Gell’s terms are applied to a
viewing scenario, the parallels between how mourners at a viewing abduct agency
from the dead body and how spectators at an art gallery abduct agency from an art
object, are striking7. First of all, within the viewing setting Gell’s terms can be
identified as:

Table I. Gell’s terms applied to the viewing setting.

Term Reference

index ¼ dead body

artist ¼ mortician
recipient ¼ mourner
prototype ¼ pre-deceased

It follows that the above-defined formula, when applied to the viewing setting,
can be read as:

[[[pre-deceased-P] ð mortician-A] ð dead body-A] à mourners-P

where the agency of the pre-deceased is abducted by the mourners, through the
mortician’s preparation of the dead body, and the dead body itself. Thus the
centrality of the dead body as an integral agent within the viewing setting is
brought to the fore. It is important at this point to note the location of the terms
within this social relationship. The existing literature regarding Western funeral
ritual is primarily written with a focus on industry. This literature (Gore, 2007;
Habenstein, 1954; Howarth, 1996; Naylor, 1989; Pine, 1975; Smale, 1985)
implicitly suggests that it is the mortician, and not the pre-deceased, that is
situated as the primary agent, thus:

[[[mortician-A] ð pre-deceased-A] ð dead body-A] à mourners-P.

 The social agency of dead bodies 315

By reversing the positions of the prototype (pre-deceased) and the artist

(mortician) within the formula, the primary source of agency shifts. These two
formulae, differing only in the placements of the mortician and pre-deceased,
‘express the basic difference between representations in which the ultimate source
of agency over the index [dead body] is attributed to the artist [mortician][. . .] and
those representations in which ultimate agency seems to rest with the prototype
[pre-deceased]’ (Gell, 1998, p. 53).
Indeed it might be the case that morticians who prepare dead bodies for viewing
perceive the latter formula to be an accurate representation of how mourners
abduct agency from the dead body. After all, via the techniques of embalming,
cosmeticising, grooming and positioning, it is they who ‘produce a visual
representation of the living person which corresponds to a remembered image of
the embodied self of the deceased’ (Hallam et al., 1999, p. 126) and who create
the accurate ‘memory picture’ of the pre-deceased in the dead body, for the
mourners to interact with. Furthermore, there is little doubt that mourners are
aware of the fact that the dead body has been prepared, to a greater or lesser
degree, in both Durnford Funeral Directors’ [Durnford’s] and Blake’s Funeral
Home [Blake’s]; what is in question here is the extent to which the morticians’
actions affect how mourners abduct agency from the dead body. Mourners’
statements such as:

You’ve done a good job with her. She looks beautiful. [Durnford’s]
You’ve done her proud. She looks lovely. [Durnford’s]
You’ve done a great job. I mean. . . that’s her. [Blake’s]
‘She looks pretty. Real pretty.’ ‘They do really good work here.’ [Blake’s]

assign primary agency to the mortician, suggesting that it is as a result of their skill that
the pre-deceased can be abducted from the dead body therefore rendering it ‘looking
beautiful’. However, this is not always the case. Mourners’ behaviour within the
viewings I observed often indicated that primary agency was being attributed to the
pre-deceased and not the mortician. Mourners’ statements such as:

You can still recognise her. That’s still Jeanie. She’s at peace now, that’s the main
thing. [Durnford’s]
She looks real nice. That’s her. I’ll tell Dad. [Blake’s]

attribute primary agency to the pre-deceased, as opposed to the mortician. This

article, however, is focused on the latter half of the formula: [dead body-A] à
mourners-P. In this context it is less concerned with whether the pre-deceased is
positioned before or after the mortician within this formula. Indeed, as Troyer
(2007) argues, the embalmed corpse has fundamentally become, for most
Americans, how death looks, and it is therefore possibly erroneous to position
either the mortician-A or the pre-deceased-A as primary agent. In fact, the
mortician-A and the pre-deceased-A can theoretically be placed equivalently:

[[mortician-A/pre-deceased-A] ð dead body-A] à mourners-P

316 S. Harper

as I would argue that the data demonstrate a relationship with the deceased both
inclusive and regardless of the degree of preparation on the part of the mortician.
Active relationships were observed with dead bodies that were thoroughly prepared
(as at Blake’s) as well as with those that were minimally prepared (as at Durnford’s):

She really was so thin. But the funeral director’s filled out her face. That’s her. And
I’m glad she has her glasses on. That really makes the difference. [Blake’s]
She looks real nice. She looks more like herself than she had in years. [Blake’s]
She looks beautiful. Beautiful. You can tell by the photos that she looks just right.
[Blake’s]
She’s beautiful. Beautiful. You made her lovely. [Durnford’s]
They’ve done a nice job of Meredith in her coffin. [Durnford’s]
I was a bit upset yesterday, with the spot on her lips. But that’s her now. [Durnford’s]

Therefore the important point of distinction here is that the dead body-A was
‘read’ by mourners-P similarly in both fieldwork settings. Gell’s (1998) assertion,
disputed by Layton (2003), that the abduction of agency is not reliant on cultural
convention appears sound because statements of a similar nature were made in
both Durnford’s and Blake’s8. However, perhaps it is the case that these
statements are similar precisely because the abduction of agency is reliant on
cultural convention: thoroughly embalmed and cosmeticised bodies look beautiful
in a culture where that is how dead bodies are expected to look, while minimally
prepared bodies that are not embalmed or cosmeticised look beautiful in a culture
where dead bodies are expected to be presented in such a fashion. If these
practices were lifted out of context and implemented elsewhere, mourners’
statements might well be quite different.

Intentional psychology
Gell’s discussion of how agency is abducted from ‘iconic’ idols in religious
worship, also described via the formula [[[Prototype-A] ð Artist-A] ð Index-A]
à Recipient-P, ‘where the prototype is the god, whose likeness is mediated by the
artist’ (Gell, 1998, p. 97), the index is the idol, and the recipient is the worshipper,
can go further in shedding light on how mourners abduct agency from the dead
body. In particular, and within this discussion, Gell usefully differentiates between
‘external’ and ‘internal’ conceptions of agency. According to the internalist theory
of agency-attribution:

behaviour is caused by factors which well up from within the person, thoughts,
wishes, intentions, etc. Minds are hidden away inside people, rather than being
manifested in between them, in the public space in which interaction takes
place, as the externalist theory seems to be saying. (Gell, 1998, p. 127)

Gell elaborates this into a discussion of inner versus outer:

The ‘internalist’ theory of agency (in its informal guise as part of everyday
thinking) motivates the development of ‘representational’, if not ‘realistic’
 The social agency of dead bodies 317

religious images, because the inner versus the outer, mind versus body contrast
prompts the development of images with ‘marked’ characteristics of inwardness
versus outwardness. Paradoxically, the development of idols which depict the
visible, superficial, features of the human body make possible the abduction of
the ‘invisible’ mind, awareness, and will from the visible image. The more
materially realistic the image, at least in certain key respects, the more spiritually
it is seen. (Gell, 1998, p. 132)

Thus it can be inferred that within the liminal period of the death ritual, mourners
who view the deceased are able to experience an inner agency, abducted from the
pre-deceased as primary agent via the grooming techniques of the mortician, from
within the dead body. This is significant, not only because the attribution of a
‘mental state’ to a dead body affects the relationship between the dead body and
the mourner, but because it implies that the dead body ‘has something inside it
‘‘which thinks’’ or ‘‘with which it thinks’’‘ (Gell, 1998, p. 129). As Gell suggests:
‘The idol may not be biologically a ‘‘living thing’’ but, if it has ‘‘intentional
psychology’’ attributed to it, then it has something like a spirit, a soul, an ego,
lodged within it’ (Gell, 1998, p. 129). The same can be said of dead bodies.
In fact, the attribution of an ‘intentional psychology’ is surely easier to
comprehend with regard to dead bodies if the primary agent from which it
abducts agency did, in fact, at one stage possess primary, active agency and
intentional psychology.
Behaviour observed in both fieldwork settings, such as physically and verbally
interacting with the dead body, suggests that this is very much the case:

Mrs Klein’s mother, sister, and brother go up [to the casket] together. The mother is in
between her two children, holding on to each of them on either side of her. Mrs Klein’s
sister says: ‘Are you going to say something to her?’ The mother leans over so her mouth
is right above Mrs Klein’s mouth, and whispers to her for quite a while. Then she kisses
Mrs Klein on the lips. The sister does the same: leans over whispering to her, then kisses
her. [Blake’s]

Mrs Fox’s neighbour leans over the casket and with her face directly above Mrs
Fox’s, whispers to her for several moments. One man, when he passes, says:
‘Goodbye Kim’. Another kisses the tips of his fingers, and then touches his fingers
to her hand. [Blake’s]

I hear the younger woman saying: ‘Hello Uncle Daz! Hello!’ as the older woman walks
in [to the chapel]. The younger woman is crying. I hear the older woman telling Uncle
Daz about the various items they’ve brought. I can also hear her telling him about
what I assume are photographs: ‘And look, there’s Auntie Sarah . . . see??’. She is
quite emphatic about it. I hear sniffling and crying. At one point I hear the younger
woman say: ‘I love you Uncle Daz! I love you so much!!’ She starts to sob as she says
this. I then hear one of the women saying: ‘We’ll see you again tomorrow. We’ll see you
tomorrow . . .’ [Durnford’s]

Mr Lynley’s daughter comes out of the chapel and into the reception; she is sobbing.
Mrs Lynley puts her arms around her daughter and they sit down in the chairs facing
318 S. Harper

the reception desk. Mrs Lynley says to her: ‘Just let it out, just let it out. It’s got to come
out . . . That’s fine, that’s fine. He knows you’re there’. I hear her daughter whisper: ‘I
held his hand’. Mrs Lynley replies: ‘He knows that. He knows you held his hand’.
[Durnford’s]

The inclusion of the dead body as an active agent in the death ritual via the
abduction of agency from the pre-deceased and mortician contributes directly
to the (re)construction of the pre-deceased into the deceased. This is
particularly feasible when intentional psychology is attributed to the dead
body-A by the mourners-P, as demonstrated above. Intentional psychology is
evidenced in a number of ways, including by the act of placing goods into the
casket or coffin. Items such as tobacco, coins, newspapers, eyeglasses, walking
sticks and food, all commonly included in both settings, suggest the attribution
of agency, particularly if they are included as functional items (i.e. to
accompany the deceased into inhumation or cremation) rather than as
decorative items (aesthetically arranged within the casket to form part of the
viewing and to be removed prior to inhumation or cremation)9. Furthermore,
letters and notes, written to the deceased and placed into the casket or coffin,
were evident in both settings. These documents speak of an intentional
psychology attributed to the deceased and mediated through the dead body
where the document has been placed, based on the abduction of agency from
the pre-deceased. On several occasions I came across sealed envelopes,
addressed to the deceased, that had been placed somewhere within the casket
or coffin:

Mrs Hoffmann’s ashes are on the desk next to me, in the box they come in from the
crematory. On top of this box is the empty urn (a bronze cube) that the ashes will be
going into. I look into the empty urn, and there is a piece of paper folded up that looks
like a child’s drawing. I take it out and open it up, recognising it as one of the things
that was in her casket during the viewing. On the front page of the card it says I love
you Gram and there is a drawing of a flower. On the inside left flap, a silver chain
with small silver cross pendant with tiny red stones, is taped. On the right inside flap of
the card it says:

Dear Gram,
You gave me this cross. And
Now I am giving it back to you,
because of your kindness here
on earth. And I always want you
to know you are my best friend
For ever and ever.

Love,
Tara
P.S. I hope you don’t mind,
but maybe I will take the
barbies from your house
and keep them. [Blake’s]
 The social agency of dead bodies 319

The process of closing Tammi’s casket occurs in a flurry of activity. I notice, when I’m
looking for the styrofoam pillow, that one of the mourners has put a sealed envelope
down under the casket pillow. I quickly cover it up again, feeling like I’ve uncovered
somebody’s private secret. [Blake’s]

The funeral director says: ‘Did you bring things to put in his coffin?’ Mrs Lynley
replies: ‘Plenty. Plenty’. Her daughter says: ‘I brought a letter’ and Mrs Lynley
continues: ‘We all brought letters’. [Durnford’s]

I look under the border of Mrs Townsend’s coffin. There is one white, letter-sized envelope,
sealed, with Mum written across it. It looks quite full. There is also a card-sized envelope
with the words To Laura, My Flower written across the front. [Durnford’s]

Finally, via the medium of the visible dead body, mourners are able to ascribe the
characteristic of being ‘at peace’ to the now-deceased person. Thus, in the index’s
presence, the (pre-)deceased’s identity transforms from a pre-death state (often
characterised as not at peace), through death, to being ‘at peace’:

He looks very good. I wanted to come in and see him because . . . because he didn’t look
too peaceful when he died. Now he looks so peaceful. [Durnford’s]

‘He’s at peace now’. ‘I know . . . and he’s with mum now, so he’s happy’.
[Durnford’s]

‘She looks beautiful. She looks at peace’. ‘She’s at peace now. She don’t gotta worry
about me no more’. [Blake’s]

I feel quite calm because he was ill for so long . . . and seeing him now I can see that he’s
at peace. And it’s so reassuring. [Blake’s]

Conclusion
As this article demonstrates, Gell’s theoretical model contributes to an under-
standing of the dead body as an entity that can be conceptualised as more than
simply ‘an object’. His model provides a framework for understanding the dead
body as a social agent, thus building upon the work of Hallam and Hockey (2001)
and H. Williams (2004), discussed above. Indeed, these authors employ Gell’s
theoretical framework to support their research and in so doing demonstrate that
Gell’s theory is useful within different areas of Death Studies. Hallam and Hockey
(2001, pp. 114–115) employ Gell’s theory in their discussion of how the dead are
incorporated into the lives of the living through the objects they leave behind,
arguing that objects such as the deceased’s clothing can be ‘attributed powerful,
and often disturbing agency’. H. Williams (2004, p. 283) makes use of Gell’s
theory to discuss how the cremated remains of deceased individuals might be
understood to have exerted agency during and after the cremation ritual, arguing
that ‘during cremation and post-cremation rites in early Anglo-Saxon England,
human remains may have been regarded as agents in their own transformation and
320 S. Harper

reconstitution’. The current article perpetuates the importance of Gell’s theory

within Death Studies. I have drawn on ethnographic fieldwork data in order to
demonstrate how dead bodies can be social agents during their death ritual. By
focusing on the liminal period between the moments of death and of final disposal
at a funeral home in the United States and a funeral directors’ in England, I have
demonstrated that Gell’s theory provides an important framework for under-
standing the relationship between the living and the dead when it is mediated by
the visible dead body, particularly when Gell’s concept of intentional psychology is
applied. In so doing, I am promoting Gell’s theory as one that should be
considered of use within Death Studies more broadly.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers who considered my
submission, for their positive and constructive comments. I would also like to
thank the Economic and Social Research Council for funding the research project
from which the data for this article is derived.

Notes
[1] This distinction has been highlighted in many anthropological studies, and is often considered to
demonstrate the Hertzian concepts of double burial and the tripartite relationship between the
corpse, the soul and mourners (Hertz, 1907/1960). See, for example, Lloyd Warner (1937),
Metcalf and Huntington (1991), Connor (1995) and Davies (2002), to name but a few.
[2] The ‘repatriation’ or ‘reburial’ issue is an excellent example of how dead bodies can be
interpreted variously and often contentiously. See Layton (1989), Fforde (2004) and Jenkins
(2010) for an overview of the debate surrounding the repatriation and/or reburial of ancient
human remains.
[3] For an overview of the art history context within which Gell’s work is situated, see Gell (1998,
pp. 1–11), Osborne and Tanner (2007, pp. 3–10) and Layton (2003, pp. 448–451).
[4] Indeed Layton, who describes himself as an ‘unrepentant semiologist’ (Layton, 2003, p. 461),
states that although he believes Gell is ‘correct to reject a specifically linguistic model for visual
communication, [he is] wrong to minimise the importance of cultural convention in shaping the
reception or ‘‘reading’’ of art objects’ (Layton, 2003, p. 447).
[5] Gell describes how to read his formulae as follows: ‘I adopt the graphic convention of always
indicating the relationship between the index-agent and the ‘‘primary’’ patient in a relation by
using the use of [the arrow ‘‘à’’.] [. . .] Agents are always placed to the left of patients; the
terminations ‘‘-A’’ and ‘‘-P’’ [respectively denoting ‘‘agent’’ and ‘‘patient’’] are really redundant
because any term to the left of another is always interpreted as an ‘‘agent’’ with respect to it’
(Gell, 1998, p. 51).
[6] For a detailed elaboration of these sixteen relationships, see Gell (1998, Ch. 3). The nexus itself
can be found in Gell (1998, p. 29, Table 1).
[7] It is tempting to draw further parallels between dead bodies and art objects by pointing out that
the dead body bears all of the characteristics ascribed by Gell to ‘art objects’ (see Layton, [2003,
p. 448] for a description of these characteristics). Indeed, as Gell states with regard to art
objects: ‘it is fair to say that indexes, from the spectators’ point of view, only mediate personhood
rather than possess it intrinsically. However, the personhood of the artist, the prototype, or the
recipient can fully invest the index in artefactual form, so that to all intents and purposes it
becomes a person, or at least a partial person. It is a congealed residue of performance and
agency in object-form, through which access to other persons can be attained, and via which
their agency can be communicated’ (Gell, 1998, p. 68).
[8] That said, the writing of this article brought to attention that the comments included from the
data appeared primarily to be made about female deceased persons. Bronfen (1992) argues that
 The social agency of dead bodies 321
‘western cultures’ construct a link between femininity and death, placing particular
emphasis on the beautiful dead female. Hallam et al. (1999, p. 134) argue that female
bodies are more likely to be cosmeticised than male bodies as a result of ‘cultural norms’,
propagating the idea that female appearance is more constructed than male appearance, and
therefore deserving of comment. Thus, in both England and the United States there might
be gender-based conventions leading to female bodies eliciting appearance-related comment.
However, it is important to note that in each sample there was a higher proportion of
deceased females to males; this may have influenced the higher proportion of female-related
comments.
[9] The inclusion of grave goods as functional items for future use does not a priori suggest religious
beliefs (Ucko, 1969; Parker Pearson, 1993).

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Biographical Note
Sheila Harper completed her PhD at the University of Bath, UK, in 2008, and is now a postdoctoral
research associate at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research interests focus on the public
perception of dead bodies in different contexts.
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