STORIES OF CARE: DEATH CARE WORKERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON

DEATH AND DYING IN WASHINGTON STATE

By

FRIEDERIKE S. JORDAN

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS IN ANTHROPOLOGY

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Department of Anthropology

DECEMBER 2023

© Copyright by FRIEDERIKE S. JORDAN, 2023

All Rights Reserved
© Copyright by FRIEDERIKE S. JORDAN, 2023
All Rights Reserved
To the Faculty of Washington State University:

The members of the Committee appointed to examine the thesis of

FRIEDERIKE S. JORDAN find it satisfactory and recommend that it be

accepted.

Jeannette M. Mageo, Ph.D., Chair of Honor

Clare Wilkinson, Ph.D., Co-Chair

Raven Weaver, Ph.D.

Caroline Owens, Ph.D.

ii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I sincerely thank Liz Siler and Stanley Smith for their guidance, warmth, and invaluable

support on this writing journey. Your open ears and hearts have been a constant source

of inspiration and strength in moments of overwhelming grief. Thank you, Kam

Spelman, for listening and caring when there was sometimes nothing left to say. I am

deeply thankful for my committee members, who have played an invaluable role in my

academic journey. Dr. Jeannette M. Mageo, your guidance from the beginning of my

graduate studies has influenced my path as a graduate student, person, and

anthropologist. Dr. Clare Wilkinson, I deeply appreciate your joining my committee in a

moment of grief and nurturing my research and ideas. Dr. Raven Weaver, thank you for

navigating the complexities of endless IRB forms and your introduction to many

inspiring death-related readings. Dr. Caroline Owens, I want to express my sincere

thanks for your profound feedback and insightful contributions, which enhanced the

depth of my thesis.

My deep appreciation goes to the individuals who graciously shared their time,

vulnerabilities, and stories as interviewees. Thank you, Return Home for your time and

knowledge and White Eagle Memorial Preserve, for the great experience of grave

digging. Lastly, I express my gratitude to my friends and family Antje, Muffin, and

Marcus; Arian; Esther; Luise and Seçil; Matt; Skyler, and Malekai; workers at the Mobile

Farm Stand; Yiting; and my parents Karin and (the ghostly presence of) Heinrich; who

stood by me, offering encouragement, understanding, and humor.

iii
 STORIES OF CARE: DEATH CARE WORKERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON

DEATH AND DYING IN WASHINGTON STATE

Abstract

by Friederike S. Jordan, M.A.

Washington State University
December 2023

Co-chairs: Jeannette M. Mageo and Clare Wilkinson

This thesis explores the relationship between Death Care Worker (DCW) and sensory

experiences, and how these experiences shape their understanding of death, dying,

and grief. Drawing on DCW's personal experiences, I argue that death and dying are

highly relational. That they shape the DCW’s sense of self, identity, and meaning in life.

Facing death and dying can start a process of (re)orientation (Ahmed 2006). Sensory

experiences contribute to (re)orientation in DCW’s encounters with death and dying.

This research views death care as an act of becoming-with more-than-human beings,

as it fosters response-able relationships in living, dying, and death (Haraway 2008). It

incorporates perspectives of subjectivity as a shared process of meaning-making

(Ozawa-de Silva 2021), co-poiesis (Desjarlais 2018), and sympoiesis (Dempster 1998)

as concepts of making together-with. This research defines DCW as not only human

beings but also more-than-human beings such as microorganisms, plants, and

machines, and so acknowledges broader relationships of care.

iv
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................. iii

ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................... iv

LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................................... vii

LIST OF CENTRAL DEATH CARE WORKERS............................................................. viii

CHAPTERS

PREFACE - A SENSUAL LOSSOGRAPHY.......................................................... 1

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION..................................................................... 10

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................... 13

Relational nature of self..................................................................................13

Subjectivity, care, and death...........................................................................15

Orientation, disorientation, and re-orientation................................................ 18

Death Attitudes in the US............................................................................... 19

CHAPTER THREE: METHODS FOR APPROACHING DEATH AND DYING.....30

Dying in Washington State............................................................................. 30

Interviews, and participant observation.......................................................... 37

Storying Death and Dying...............................................................................38

CHAPTER FOUR: STORIES OF DEATH AND DYING IN WASHINGTON STATE.. 41

Death, care, and co-poiesis............................................................................41

Negotiating end-of-life care and death care................................................... 49

v
 Disorientation and re-orientation in end-of-life care and death care...............56

Natural organic reduction, livable presents.................................................... 66

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION......................................................................... 93

Findings.......................................................................................................... 93

Limitations...................................................................................................... 95

Future directions............................................................................................. 95

BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................. 97

vi
 LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1: Showing the tools used to dig a grave. The picture captures the
result, after day one, of digging a grave.………………………………….31
Figure 2: Picture taken from inside the finished hand-dug grave………………….32

Figure 3: Lockdown and physical distancing during the COVID-19

pandemic in 2020 Paris, France, “Lockdown”
© Antoine d’Agata / Magnum Photos……………………………………...48
Figure 4: Return Home building…………………………………………………….....68

Figure 5: Sliding doors at Return Home with gray vessels (on the left).................70

Figure 6: Picture of the inside of a primary vessel after a laying ceremony……...72

Figure 7: Demonstration vessel with chairs for the living…………………………..73

Figure 8: Schema of initial testing requirements for NOR………………………….76

Figure 9: Soil of one human in burlap bags (in the front), with smaller
burlap bags (in the back)........................................................................77
Figure 10: Composting instructions (postcard size)...............................................78

Figure 11: Woodland area with two people walking along an asphalt path……....79

Figure 12: Map of places, marked with pins, that Return Home has served……..80

Figure 13: Non-woven compostable gown…………………………………………...82

Figure 14: Gong at Return Home……………………………………………………...84

Figure 15: Painted drum at Return Home…………………………………………….85

Figure 16: Murals at Recompose building……………………………………………86

Figure 17: Neighborhood around Recompose……………………………………….86

vii
 LIST OF CENTRAL DEATH CARE WORKERS

I use pseudonyms and modified identifying details to keep my research

participants' identities confidential.

Death Care Worker DCW’s connection with death and dying

Judith (she/her/they), 49, Seattle area Death advocacy worker

Leo (she/they), 31, Seattle area Death advocacy worker, EMT, employee at a
funeral home

Lola (she/her), 30, Seattle area End-of-life Doula

Annette (she/her), 60, Palouse EMT, grief counselor, hospice volunteer

Luisa (she/her), 74, Palouse Social worker, palliative care worker

Henry (he/him), 80, Palouse Death Care Worker who experienced several
deaths in his life

Hannah (she/her), 32, Palouse Death advocacy worker, Funeral director,

embalmer

Karmen (she/her), 42, Palouse Death Care Worker who experienced several
deaths in her life

Mona (she/her), 39, Palouse Nurse, Palliative care worker

Stacey (he/him), 29, Seattle area Employee at a funeral home

Nora (she/her), 35, Seattle area Funeral director, embalmer

Oceana (they/them), 46, Seattle area Death Care Worker who experienced several
deaths in her life

Sharon (she/her), 63, Seattle area Death advocacy worker

viii
 Dedication

I dedicate my thesis to Jeannette and Stan.

ix
 PREFACE - A SENSUAL LOSSOGRAPHY

The distinguished professor of the history of consciousness Donna Haraway

(2021) advises in one of her talks to start your writing always with something that you

love. I love Professor Jeannette Mageo, who was my advisor and the reason why I

came to the US. I started graduate school in Anthropology and was deeply impacted by

her death at the beginning of 2023, midway through my graduate program. At the

beginning of this thesis, which addresses processes of death and dying, I use the

method of lossography to reflect on Jeannette’s death.

A lossography is a reflection of personal experiences of loss and grief (Bolkan et

al. 2014; Weaver et. al 2022). It is a form of storytelling to engage with the dead,

exploring and expressing a personal loss. In essence, a lossography is an introspection.

It acknowledges personal emotions associated with grief and comes to terms with

mortality as it considers how these experiences have shaped one's perspective on life.

A lossography can also provide a framework from which to move into research of some

point or points for further research and analysis. In a study on death and dying a

lossography can provide a connection between an experience and a research focus.

Here it provides a connection between my experience with the death of a beloved

mentor and the research I started with that mentor on the subject of death and dying.

Students writing lossographies are often asked to consider questions such as What do

you wish could have been different about this death? Whom did you talk about this

death? What did you learn about death? I have added the sensual to the lossography,

asking myself what (unconscious) role smell, touch, vision, taste, and sound played in

my experience of dying and grief.

1
 Here, in the form of a sensual lossography, I start with a personal reflection on

Jeannette’s recent death and my grief experience as her student and friend. After

Jeannette’s death, everything seemed to happen all at once but was also lacking in joy

and excitement. Days went by fast, and at the same time, they crept slowly.

Odor

I preserved Jeannette’s scent. Jeannette gifted me a green shirt, which was her

favorite color. She got out of bed and presented me with the shirt. I held her arm to

strengthen her walk back to bed. I tried it on, and we both decided we liked how it

looked. Our shared decision was to me most personal and intimate. Giving her physical

support was also a change in our role as student and professor, and as friends. After

her death, I put this shirt in a plastic bag to contain her scent. Odor, LeBreton (2017,

145) argues, “can deny the absence or death, or summon ghosts from the past.”

I couldn’t agree more, smelling that shirt acts as a powerful trigger to evoke

Jeannette’s presence. Especially with my eyes closed. When everything was moved out

of her house after she died, her scent was gone, too. With the loss of the sensory

connection to the past, it was easier for me to leave her house. Now, I can summon

Jeannette’s presence by smelling the green shirt and again, in my grief, feel connected

to her memory.

Touch

A last road trip to scatter Jeannette’s ashes. I am sitting on a porch in California

and feel privileged that I was able to meet Jeannette, privileged that she spent time with

me and shared her wisdom, knowledge, and stories. I carried her ashes in a plastic bag

2
on a beautiful California Beach, the place where she wanted to return. The slight burden

of her ashes created a new feeling of connection with Jeannette. I felt honored and filled

with gratitude. That night, Jeannette’s boyfriend and I went on a walk at the beach, and

he fell on a rock. It felt like the lingering presence of Jeannette did not want him to leave

the beach. The beach and the ocean became a symbolic place of Jeannette’s lingering

presence continuing to shape our present experience - a haunting mutuality (Danely

2018). For a second, all that frailty of life and death came back. We sat down on the

sand, drenched, laughing and crying.

Taste

During the Winter Break, I went to Germany, and Jeannette asked me to bring

her some German bread. We had weekly meetings but did not talk about her impending

death. There was always a bit of hope for a miracle, like a magic touch that could cure

her. Jeannette was referring to Michelangelo's (around 1511) fresco “Creation of Adam.”

When I came back to the US in January, Jeannette, her boyfriend, another friend, and I

all shared Pumpernickel from Germany together, and I was introduced to Mint

Chocolate ice cream - one of her favorites. Even though she did not have the greatest

appetite, somehow, the Pumpernickel and the ice cream became a lively, spontaneous

meal among friends. Whenever I eat Pumpernickel, I will think of Jeannette, or as

sociologist Léo Moulin (1975, 10) put it, “we eat our most reassuring memories."

Sound

I found some stability in helping to organize a small informal wake for Jeannette

for a selected group of friends and graduate students, to whom her boyfriend would

3
serve some wine. We were a group of three, and our Monday meetings to set up the

wake became regular weekly meetings to talk about Jeannette. We created a safe

space for our grief.

After the wake was over, I felt horribly isolated. The absence of supportive people

from the wake threw me into a deep void of loss. I felt my grief in physical ways: a

numbness on my forehead (which I only experienced when my father died), and I had a

ringing in my ears along with a sensation of normal sounds being distant. My grief and

pain shut out the world, a common experience to many in the aftermath of a death. I

crawled into my dark studio flat and hoped all would just be over. I played “Candy

Crush” (a video game matching candies in a row) obsessively on my smartphone as a

distraction. Reality was dark, empty, and frightening. While I was waiting for those

moments to pass, I felt like a broken caged item on display with people looking at me

through a transparent barrier.

After a weekly meeting with my writing instructor, who listened and asked about

my grief, I felt encouraged to reach out to the Mental Health Care at WSU. I ended up in

a Mindfulness group. No spots for individual counseling were open, but I took whatever

class was offered just not to be alone all the time.

In 2022, I became the teaching assistant (TA) for Jeannette’s asynchronous

online class on Dreaming and Culture. Jeannette was the first person who really

showed me how to grade class assignments, interact with undergraduates as part of the

grading process, and become a graduate student. She immediately figured out that I am

a worrier, so we had weekly meetings to discuss my research and graduate life. I cannot

express in words how much she positively shaped my academic experience in the US.

Never in my life have I experienced a professor who cared so much for her students.

4
 In the semester Jeannette died, I was the TA for the same asynchronous online

class. Listening to Jeannette’s recorded lectures, or sometimes seeing her recorded

videos was hard. The person instructing the class (a friend of mine) was also a student

of Jeannette’s, and we both were grieving in our own ways. I am amazed we managed

the semester together, but I could not tell you how. Being dependent on our Teaching

Assistantship, we did not get a break from graduate school. Managing that class, on top

of grief and money worries, put additional stressors on our friendship. Our friendship

broke, and I felt more isolated than ever.

Vision

In early February, Jeannette (2022) received the Boyer prize for her new book

“The mimetic nature of dream mentation.” Jeannette made sure, in case of her death,

that her students would accept the prize on her behalf during the Society for

Psychological Anthropology (SPA) conference in April 2023. Some of Jeannette’s

students, including myself1, attended the SPA conference in 2023 to accept this prize.

After a speech in Jeannette’s honor, I was feeling sad, frustrated, and angry. It

was the first speech of the evening, and not all participants were at their table. It was

loud, messy, and chaotic when the speaker started. Our table was next to a water

fountain, and it was hard to understand what was said. At some point, the speaker

pointed to our table and indicated that we, as her students, were accepting her prize.

What could have been a beautiful moment felt rushed. I felt disappointed and had to get

out of this scene. I took off into the night and found myself in a garden at the back of the

building. Almost nobody was there, and I felt safe to cry. As I vented in tears my feelings

1
The department covered some of my travel expenses.

5
of sadness and frustration, a big, unexpected firework came up. (It was unrelated to the

SPA conference.) I had a great view over San Diego at night, tinted by the fireworks.

The fireworks felt like a response to my feelings, they seemed like a symbol to me. It felt

like Jeannette was offering me guidance and perspective beyond the disappointment of

the speech; to be humble and grateful. I felt connected to Jeannette. This experience

blurred for me the boundaries between the living and dead, and the material and

symbolic. Anthropologist Jean Langford (2016, 4) would describe my encounter with

Jeannette, the fireworks, and my feelings as a form of "ghostly poetics." By ghostly

poetics Langford means certain emotional experiences wherein one feels connected

with the dead by encountering definite if ambiguous symbols and signs that call to mind

the departed.

After the first day of Jeannette’s wake, I slept next to her urn. It was strange in

that way that I never slept next to an urn, but doing so made me feel connected. I had

the option to sleep in a bed on the same floor where Jeannette died, but I could not

bring myself to do that, instead, I would sleep on a couch next to her physical remains.

I own Jeannette’s orange chair. A friend of mine said that they do not want

anything of Jeannette’s belongings as they worried Jeannette’s spirit would see this as

an invitation to visit. She expressed it as being threatened by Jeannette’s spirit. I kept

thinking about my friend's concerns further and wondered if I would find this personally

concerning. Instead, I make sure Jeannette’s chair is empty at night so she can come

and visit and take a seat.

6
 Analysis

My world as a graduate student was anchored in my bond with Jeannette.

Economic insecurity and academic responsibilities (e.g., grading papers, attending

classes, responding to undergraduates) posed an additional destabilizing factor while

dealing with grief. It was hard to balance different responsibilities - being a graduate

student, being in grief, being a friend, being an international student away from my

bigger support system in Germany, and being economically dependent on my teaching

assistantship.

The anthropology department did not provide sufficient support and care and

only sent out an email titled “sad news.” It was composed of three sentences, informing

the anthropology graduate student email list of Jeannette’s “passing” and possible

future updates about any funeral plans. Hours later, the dean of the College of Arts and

Sciences sent out an email with more words about Jeannette, her work, and her

achievements, and also shared resources for counseling. Four days later, the

anthrograds email list got an update, saying that the department would provide a

summary2 of her career. In the same email, the reader learned that Jeannette did not

wish for a public memorial or service, as informed by Jeannette’s boyfriend. The

passing of a human life, a colleague, a friend and a mentor - all dismissed in two

sentences.

Simultaneously, our anthropology department invited candidates as part of a

“cluster hire” to Pullman. Not one of the new hires was informed about Jeannette’s

death. Participating in those recommended “Luncheons” with the possible candidates

meant for Jeannette’s students when asked, “Who is your advisor?” they must inform

2
A faculty member asked a friend and me to support that write-up if we wanted, but I did not participate in
it.

7
the candidates themselves about the recent death. That was the only time our

department, or rather the graduate students, publicly talked about Jeannette’s death in

an academic setting. And it hurts. Over and over again.

After a month or so, when colleagues assumed everything was getting better, this

is when it really got worse for me. I was short-tempered, sad, mean, eating a lot, eating

nothing, smoking, drinking, crying. I was longing for a break, trying to stand still so time

would also stand still. At some point, I avoided seeing those people who knew about

Jeannette’s death but were not willing to talk about it. I was afraid to act improperly, to

be seen as disruptive, or to be too angry or too sad. I swallowed my anger and

frustration and avoided others. Fearing to endanger my teaching assistantship, just like

the Samoans whose social roles overshadow their internal states (Mageo 1998), I

compromised my own authenticity by hiding my vulnerability, struggle, and

disagreement. In my view, the department handled Jeannette’s death as something to

avoid. I was distressed.

In September, a former colleague of Jeannette’s (from a different WSU Campus)

organized a remembrance for the academic community. I am grateful that this gathering

took place, in that it provided an opportunity for colleagues and students coming

together honoring Jeannette and her impact on our lives.

This lossography allowed me to reflect on and express my emotions and create a

meaningful story around my experiences of Jeannette’s death. In a real sense, this loss

and this lossography, the stories I have told about this loss, have helped me in the act of

“becoming-with” Jeannette (Haraway 2008, 38).

To become always means to become-with many (Haraway 2008). In other words,

to become oneself is always intertwined with one’s connections to and experiences with

8
others - we do not exist in isolation but are constantly becoming-with many by forming

(visible and invisible, recognized and unrecognized, conscious and unconscious)

relationships with others. Such others can be animals, microorganisms, machines, soil,

mushrooms, people, and eco-systems.

Becoming-with is always a shared, communal experience, an activity constantly

done in collaboration with others. It is a relational and interconnected view of the self.

This suggests also that subjectivity, as a part of the self, is always constructed with

others. Becoming-with is inseparable from thinking-with - “thinking as a multiple”

(Davies 2016, 3). The way a person approaches dying - their own death experience or

that of others they are caring for - is part of becoming-with many, a way that is at least in

part culturally shaped but also culturally constrained.

I feel a bit ashamed and embarrassed by sharing my experience of grief.

However, I mean to be authentic by acknowledging and embracing the complexity of my

relationships with others while accepting the vulnerability that sharing my emotions,

thoughts, and experiences with my readers entails. With these experiences in mind, I

seek to explore related themes in the following thesis: loss, death, authenticity, care,

caring for, and stories and their shaping impact on the lives of Death Care Workers.

9
 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Death care, at its core, is “being in it together” (LeGuin 1974), the “it” here

referring to death and dying. LeGuins phrase of “being in it together” reflects the idea of

becoming-with others. On a symbolic and emotional level, a form of care can mean

acknowledging and attending to a “ghostly presence” beyond the physical realm. Care

extends to understanding how we are connected and entangled in complexity and

possible futures: in spaces, bodies, environments, and more-than-human (Haraway

2016) commitments. Care involves learning from each other by talking, reading, and

listening to stories - as in this thesis wherein I will present stories about death and

dying. Care is a social commitment to staying with the dying. Care requires facing

uncertainty without fixing, avoiding, or denying it (Stevenson 2014). Care involves

recognizing and valuing what truly matters - the mutual sharing of “response-ability”

(Haraway 2016, 16), vulnerability, meaningful experiences, accepting and allowing

dependence, and being authentic.

Death care is SF - “string figures, science fiction, speculative feminism, science

fantasy, speculative fabulation, science fact, and so far” (Haraway 2016, 2). SF, or string

figuring, is a method of “worlding and storying” (Haraway 2016, 13). The idea of

“worlding and storying” suggest that a persons lived experiences shape the way a

person perceives and understands the world:

It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories
we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts
think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It
matters what worlds make worlds, what worlds make stories. (Haraway 2016,
12-13)
Haraway’s ideas are inspired by anthropologist Marilyn Strathern.

10
 SF (including the idea of relationality as becoming-with) becomes a heuristic

device by “staying with the trouble” (Haraway 2016, 3). Staying with the trouble is a

moral imperative (Haraway 2016). It is humans’ “response-ability” to engage, address,

and commit to confronting the challenges of current times (e.g., mass extinctions, wars,

climate change) and to make a positive impact (Haraway 2016, 13). We have a duty to

care.

SF are woven entangled threads of knowledge. String figures are complex webs

of interconnections, relationships, narratives, and practices. Haraway (1994) uses the

game “Cat’s Cradle” as a metaphor to elaborate this storying practice. An example from

my lossography: Jeannette and her lingering presence, her death, her boyfriend, my

relationship with Jeannette and her boyfriend, the beach, the rock, and her smell are

entangled in the String Figure (SF) of death care. Thus, it is that we, as SF ourselves,

are in turn woven into an even larger pattern.

I would also propose another SF, sensory feeler (antenna). I explored the SF, that

is the entanglements, of death care by engaging with Death Care Workers (DCW) and

their sensory experiences. DCW include not only human beings but also

more-than-human beings such as microorganisms, plants, and machines.

DCW travel with the dying and the dead. DCW care for the dying in various ways:

They can provide solace and company, handle the disposal of a body after death, or

participate in decomposing the dead body.

I studied DCWs in the Palouse and Seattle area, including funeral home owners;

end-of-life doulas; hospice and palliative care workers; people who sat with their dying

loved ones; ghost hunters; and microorganisms. As an ethnographer, I toured funeral

homes and attended funeral services, death cafes, and support groups. I visited a

11
conservation burial ground (to volunteer for grave digging by hand) and land-partners of

funeral homes. I attended exhibitions around death and dying and End-of-life Doula

trainings.

I interviewed human DCWs for their perspectives on and experiences with death,

dying, and care. I came to a deeper understanding of the SF of death care. In this

thesis, I examined two central questions:

a) How do DCW, drawing from their own experiences, become re-oriented in their

encounters with loss and grief, shaping their death care practices?

b) How do DCW’s sensory experiences contribute to their understanding of death,

dying, and ongoing cultural construction of self, identity, and meaning?

Because I attended Washington State University, I started my research in the

rural Palouse area, and then discovered the metropolitan setting of the Seattle area with

its opportunities for environmentally-friendly burial options, such as natural organic

reduction (“human composting”). I also researched conservation burials in Yakima. I am

not conducting a direct geographic comparison between these areas, but I follow the

diverse approaches (threads) of body disposition practices in Washington State and

how they come together, or not.

To discuss the string figures of death care, those entangled with it, it is necessary

to have a theoretical foundation of concepts such as becoming-with, subjectivity,

authenticity, attachment, relationality, and orientation.

For discussing SF of death care, a sociohistorical knowledge of death attitudes

and death movements in the US informs an interpretation of death-related end-of-life

practices and knowledge in the US.

12
 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

Relational nature of self

The self has a relational nature (Kitayama et. al 1997; Rochat 2009; Ozawa-de

Silva 2021). The self develops through our entanglement and interactions with others

and our environment. This relational nature, this interdependence between individuals,

the world, and society, impacts how we approach death care.

Early on, anthropological literature had ontological premises about the self

(Mageo 1995). Anthropologists' interpretations of the self often emphasize either the

experience of individuality (often referred to as egocentric) or the experience of playing

a role within a larger group (often referred to as sociocentric). Interpretations of the self

are ontological premises, as they are cultural versions of what it means to be a person.

Egocentrism and sociocentrism “are a matter of degree” (Mageo 1995, 283).

Anthropologist Ozawa-de Silva (2021, 195) argues for the “dual-natured sense of self”

which recognizes both individual and interdependent aspects of self as they appear to

different degrees in various cultures.

Professor of Education and Maori Development Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012, 58)

critiques Western concepts of “place and space, knowledge and research, individual

and community, imperialism and colonialism” as rooted in concepts of distance - which

create objectivity, individualism, detachment, and separation. Smith, in her challenge to

concepts of distance, encourages a rethinking of Western thought in the hopes of

decolonizing research methodologies. The egocentric Western view of the self has

shifted toward a more nuanced and differentiated understanding of selfhood (Shimizu

13
2001; Mageo 2002; Ozawa-de Silva 2021). The population of the US shares egocentric

(i.e., independence, freedom, choices) and sociocentric (i.e., equality, community,

belonging) notions of selfhood.

Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins (2013, 9) discusses the sense of self and life,

emphasizing the “mutuality of being,” the essence of being or existence that involves a

shared, reciprocal, or mutual connection between individuals. Sahlins emphasizes

interconnectedness, which, as anthropologist Danely (2018, 140) points out, “may

extend beyond life.” Anthropologist Abou Farman (2017) writes about the collective

condition of facing terminality in the context of a climate catastrophe and suggests a

shared fate and interconnectedness. Ecological catastrophes are part of the

contemporary experience. The choices and actions of individuals and societies impact

the entire global ecosystem. Sociologist Lyn Lofland (Lofland, Troyer, and Francis 2019,

20) describes this conscious confrontation and connection between dying and extinction

as “prolonged dying.”

The Anthropocene3 extinction refers to an ongoing and accelerating loss of

biodiversity on Earth driven primarily by human activities. We all share those challenges

and experiences related to terminality by living together on a damaged planet (Tsing

2015). Anthropologist Heather Paxson (2014, 41) states, “Never think you speak for all

of yourself.” Her remark underscores the idea that a significant portion of humans'

genetic material is shared with other species.

The relationships and interdependencies among more-than-human beings -

animals, plants, microorganisms - and the environment shape our sense of self and

response-ability. As such, I adopt an encompassing perspective of Death Care Work,

3
Discussing the concept of the Anthropocene, as an “geological epoch” marked by human activities and
destruction, anthropologists Swanson, Bubandt and Tsing (2015, 149-150) engage in the
“thought-experiment of viewing the anthropocene as a science fiction” to engage in the present.

14
one that considers these more-than-human elements. For example, the legalization of

natural organic reduction (NOR), the process of transforming a deceased person into

fertile soil, also called human composting or terramation, in WA, is a story of

interdependency. In the process of NOR (an act of death care), string figures like

microorganisms, plants, the environment, and humans play roles and relate one to

another. For one interviewee, Judith (she/her/they), being composted was about her

climate impact on the earth:

I don't think that I'm personally slowing down climate change, but I'm trying to do
my part not to make things any worse for our poor earth that is burning. That, for
me, extends to death. I want my death and the things that surround my death to
be as friendly on the earth as possible. That is also just as low intervention as
possible. Decomposing, that's what I would like, has low impact for the
environment, low impact for me, low impact for the people around me.
(09/22/2023)
Judith anchors herself in the natural world instead of subordinating nature

(anthropocentric view). Her perspective moves beyond human exceptionalism because

she is concerned with a flourishing, biodiverse environment and livable futures. Judith

recognizes the relational nature of self (challenging the dualism of human/nature) and

shows response-ability by caring for the environment, the people around her, and

herself.

Subjectivity, care, and death

A person's subjectivity, including roles within the family, community, society, and

personal relationships, shapes their response to death. In psychological anthropology,

selfhood refers to “all aspects of being a person” (Mageo 2003, 7). Subjectivity is the

process that constructs selfhood (Ozawa-De Silva 2021). Subjectivity encompasses

emotions, thoughts, beliefs, fears, and other aspects of experience. The processes of

15
subjectivity are dynamic, relational, and continuously transforming (Ozawa-De Silva

2021). Those processes play a fundamental role in how individuals experience,

perceive, and interact with the world around them.

Anthropologist Chikako Ozawa-De Silva calls the processes of subjectivity the

“Janus-faced nature of subjectivity” (2021, 21), referring to Janus, a two-faced Roman

god, that could simultaneously look into the past with one face and the present with the

other face. In reference to subjectivity, Ozawa-de Silva (2021, 21) uses the metaphor of

a Janus-faced nature to imply a dynamic interaction between the inner and outer

dimensions of subjectivity, the simultaneous experience of interdependence and

independence in which “All subjectivity, is intersubjectivity.” The dynamic interplay of

social context, lived experience, and power relations continually influences and

(re)shapes subjectivity (Ortner 2005; Danely 2017).

Through these processes, we distinguish ourselves from the surrounding

environment. This differentiation of self from the environment, facilitated by neural

processes, defines the essence of consciousness and sentience in beings (Ozawa-De

Silva 2021). Subjectivities encompass a “sense of self and self-world relations” (Hollan

and Leander 2004, 127). Subjectivity involves a relational process to become-with many

(Haraway 2008). Subjectivity is sympoetic. “Sym” meaning “together-with” and “poesis”

meaning “an act or process of making or creation.”

This relational process of becoming-with (sympoiesis) is continuously

transforming. For instance, creating meaning, values, beliefs, and attitudes occurs

collaboratively with others (Ozawa-De Silva 2021, 21). Society, as Ozawa-De Silva

(2021, 28) writes, is then “in large part the product of collective subjectivity.”

16
 For Hungarian-Canadian physician Gabor Maté (2022), authenticity and

attachment are essential parts of one’s subjectivity. Authenticity (one’s genuine

emotions and needs) and attachment (emotional bonds formed between individuals and

others, e.g., a child bonded to their caregivers) are related and form a basis for

emotional well-being: Attachment is a human need (see also Bowlby 1969; Ainsworth

1973; Meehan and Hawks 2013). Succumbing to societal and cultural expectations,

humans sacrifice authenticity for attachment throughout the lifespan (Maté 2022).

Becoming authentic is a process that brings one closer to being true to one's

values, beliefs, actions, and choices (Jung 1993; Kierkegaard [1849] 2004; Maté 2022).

Necessary to this process is recognizing how one’s relationships shape oneself. One

can only strive towards becoming authentic (individuated), it is the lifelong-process of

reaching one's full potential or a closer sense of self-awareness. To aspire to

authenticity moves us to staying with the trouble and impacts how we care for others

and ourselves and recognizing response-ability and addressing inequalities in death

care.

Considering Maté’s and Ozawa-De Silva’s ideas helps to understand how

subjectivity, attachment, and authenticity are interconnected. This interconnection

influences how individuals perceive, experience, and navigate relationships of death

care. My interviewee Leo (she/they) talks about how people in the US are trained to

perceive death as an emergency, and follows societal expectations of death care like a

check-list to be quickly accomplished. Such haste neglects their own need of those who

remain alive to negotiate this new normal, this new relationship between themselves

and the dead person. Leo says:

I think one of the biggest things is I work really hard to try to get people to
understand that death isn't an emergency. US American culture has raised us all,

17
 especially since the Civil War, to think that death is an emergency, but if you
really think about it, death is not an emergency, [...] it cannot get worse at this
point. But people are worried about having a dead body in their home like it is a
crime. No one is going to think you murdered your grandpa, who had cancer.
Like if you want to shave him so that he looks nice and make sure that he's
wearing his favorite cardigan or you wanna brush his hair and you didn't
immediately call the Funeral Home, none of that's a crime, but I bet that it felt
really good for you to get to care for him. I think that matters so much. [...] It's
been my experience, you know, when I tell people you're allowed to take the
time, you know, sometimes they've called me back to say thank you for saying
that. (09/21/2023)
Leo, acknowledging the subjective experience of death and dying, emphasizes in

her more authentic approach to death care a need to perform a more personal and

meaningful care that supersedes the societal notion of “death as an emergency.”

Orientation, disorientation, and re-orientation

The study of how individuals perceive and make meaning of their lived

experiences through their bodies and senses and their intersubjective worldly

experience (Merleau-Ponty 1962) is a phenomenological approach. Bodies are oriented

in space and time towards objects, towards different objects in different ways (Ahmed

2006). As we orient ourselves, our bodies create social worlds. Orientation is not always

a conscious process, often it is only when we become disoriented that we experience

the lack of orientation (Ahmed 2006, 5-6). Philospher Edward Casey (1987, 151) argues

that the primary purpose of orienting is to acquaint oneself with the surroundings. Casey

(1987, 151) asserts:

To be disoriented, or even simply unoriented, is to find these same surroundings

unfamiliar, unheimlich. [...] In particular, it is not to know which way to go or to
turn - which route to follow. Getting oriented is to learn precisely which routes are
possible, and eventually which are most desirable, by setting up habitual patterns
of bodily movement. These patterns familiarize us with the circumambient world
by indicating ways we can move through it in a regular and reliable manner.
Without such patterned movements, we would be lost in an unfamiliar world.

18
 Feminist writer, and intersectional scholar Sara Ahmed's (2006) metaphor for

social orientation and “patterned movements” (Casey 1987, 151) is the image of staying

on a line: It is comfortable for people to stay on a line. Insofar some objects are near-by

it, though other objects are out of reach. We follow lines (as patterns of thoughts and

motion) and also lines direct us, and this is how we anchor and recognize ourselves in

space and time (Ahmed 2006, 16). Lines are, then, performative (Ahmed 2006, 16).

Ahmed (2006) introduces queer phenomenology and expands upon it to explore

the significance of orientation and disorientation as they relate to the underlying power

dynamics that influence experience. Ahmed (2006) argues that not everyone has the

same experiences of how bodies occupy space and are recognized or not recognized,

or accommodated in social spaces.

For example, a doorknob is not accessible to everyone. It is installed at a certain

height, which can be challenging for people in a wheelchair to reach. Even the mere

shape of a doorknob can be a problem as it requires a certain grabbing and twisting

motion.

Interactions “in, and by, and through the body” are subject to influences such as

our identities as perceived by ourselves and others, the power relations that ensue, and

a host of other social variables (Casey 1987, 147). Those norms, conventions, and

structures shape our experiences and interactions.

Orientation, disorientation, and re-orientation, then, are valuable concepts for

considering how DCW navigate complex experiences of death, dying, and grief.

19
Death Attitudes in the US

Responses to death and dying are “deeply rooted in culture” (Danely 2018, 132)

and are occasions for negotiating social identities. Cultural norms, values, traditions,

and belief systems influence how individuals understand and interpret death, dying, and

associated rituals and practices. Culture shapes and is shaped by the ways people

navigate death. Responses to death are an ongoing process of interaction and

adaptation, shaping a person’s conscious and unconscious behavior. How people

respond to death “reinforces normative patterns of sociality” (Danely 2018, 132).

Cultural responses to death are part of broader social norms, and influence how

individuals interact, support each other, and navigate death-related grief in society.

Cultural responses to death include not only how we express death-related grief but

also the roles we perform and the expectations we have surrounding mourning rituals

and the support provided by the community (Danely 2018, 132). Understanding those

dynamics is crucial for appreciating the diversity of human responses to death across

cultures and within a culture like the US.

US American attitudes toward death and dying are complex, ambivalent,

simultaneous, and interconnected. The spectrum of death attitudes range from

death-avoidant (David 2016), and death-denying (Aries 1974; Gorer 1955), to

death-accepting (Zimmermann 2012; Wong et al. 2018), and death-positive (Koskvik

2020; Incorvaia 2023). Such concerns have led to death movements, such as the Death

Positive Movement and the Green Burial Movement. Within Washington State, a state

at the forefront of movements such as medical aid in dying (also called

physician-assisted death) and natural organic reduction (also referred to as human

20
composting), it is difficult to say that one normative attitude or set of attitudes exists

beyond an evident belief in choice in matters of death and dying.

People’s stage of lifespan development influences their attitudes toward death

and dying. Life course theory (Elder 1994; Giele and Elder 1998) describes how

individuals' circumstances and experiences (i.e., family dynamics, socioeconomic

status, education, access to healthcare) shape their development over time. The life

course theory relates to death and dying in that it considers all of the above and leads to

an analysis of inequalities and injustices in how people die and approach death.

A lengthy history of death movements and attitudes in the US is beyond the

scope of my study. I hope, however, to offer, though not all-encompassing, an overview

of the high points of some death movements and attitudes in the US that will provoke

thought about contemporary discourse on death and dying and is at least partially

reflective of the diverse range of movements and attitudes found in the research focus

area of Washington State.

Embalming and the Professionalization of Death Care

The 1860s saw the advent of embalming. Before the 1860s, death care was

often a hands-on job for the community. Families and communities cooperated in caring

for the deceased, such as in building coffins and digging graves.

During the Civil War (1861-1865), a large number of soldiers died far away from

their homes. By draining all bodily fluids and replacing them with preservative fluids, the

embalmers were able to slow down natural decomposition, thus providing extra time for

the transportation of bodies back to their hometowns and loved ones. This procedure

allowed families to see their dead loved ones prior to burial despite long distances; in

21
some cases, it also allowed extended displays of the body, as in the case of Abraham

Lincoln’s funeral procession.

The professionalization of death care came with the enactment of embalming.

Urbanization, and the commercialization of funerary services brought about a need for

more formal and specialized death services. The community-based approach to death

care became less practical, and embalming demanded people with specific training.

The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) was founded in 1882, marking a

significant step in the industry's professionalization (i.e., establishment of ethics and

education). Men took over death care, and so it was that women, who had formerly

performed preparation of the body at home, were now excluded from that domestic

ritual in favor of public male “professionals” (Laderman 1996; Mitford 1998). It bears

noting that only two of the Death Care Workers I interviewed for this thesis identified as

male.

Death Education

Thanatology, the study of death and dying, started in the 1900s and included

contributions from diverse fields such as anthropology, medicine, and philosophy. The

term derives from the Greek word Thanatos, meaning “death,” and the Greek suffix

-logia, meaning “the study of.” The study of Thanatology includes funeral practices,

grief, and organ transplantation laws. Thanatologist and psychologist Kastenbaum

(1993, 75) defined thanatology as “the study of life with death left in.” Kastenbaum

(1977) introduced the concept of death systems. Death systems as the complex webs

of factors and influences that shape an individual's understanding and experience of

22
death within a societal setting, are SF. A death system encompasses people, places,

objects, times, and symbols (Kastenbaum 1977).

Fear of death

Though humans often strive for meaning in life by realizing their mortality, denial

for others is a defense mechanism. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1899) argued that

unconscious psychological processes shape human behaviors and beliefs. He

proposed that the unconscious motivation of behavior is to overcome particular

conscious desires and unconscious fears, including the instinctive fear of death.

Anthropologist Ernest Becker (1973) argued that the fear of death is a universal

phenomenon experienced by humans. Becker (1973) advocated that fear of death is the

primary unconscious motivator for human activities and behavior, and sociocultural

factors (e.g., religious beliefs, death rituals, and the portrayal of death in media and

literature) shape the fear of death. Denying death is a psychological defense

mechanism, and people repress their fear of mortality to alleviate anxiety and existential

angst. “In the modern West [...] we are conditioned not only to deny death but to view it

as a failure. [...] If we think of dying people as a separate group, we can imagine that we

are not dying. We can pretend that it isn’t happening to us” (Robbins 2007, 203-204). In

the modern West, including the US, we draw a distinction between the living and dying,

we view death as failure and deploy the defense mechanism of denial.

Immortality

The transhumanist movement promotes technology to enhance and transcend

human capabilities. Transhumanists hope to overcome biological boundaries. They not

23
only believe they may be able to extend life and rejuvenate the body, but even to

overcome biological death. They aspire to the creation of hybrid bodies which might not

include only prosthetic limbs and organs (for a kind of physical immortality), but also the

capability of uploading the mind to computer storage (for a kind of computational

immortality) (Deretic and Stefan 2016; Ach and Beck 2024).

The “RAADfest 2023” (Revolution Against Aging and Death) was an event that

expressed desires for radical life extension and age-reversing techniques.

Anthropologist Jennifer Huberman (2022) argues that pursuing immortality has become

an industry led by and for the elite. And so raises questions about access and equity.

Tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and founder of PayPal,

Peter Thiel, are reported to support and invest in technologies and research to

overcome human mortality (Huberman 2022). Thiel has already paid for being

cryogenized. Cryogenics is the procedure of freezing bodies after death with the

intention of thawing them in the future when technologies for achieving immortality are

believed to be possible. The term "cryopolitics," coined by Kowal and Radin (2015),

focuses on the management of not dying.

Some philosophical, spiritual, or religious traditions believe in forms of immortality

that transcend the physical body. Concepts like life as an energy process, the soul,

reincarnation, and an afterlife are central to these beliefs, which suggest a continuation

of identity or consciousness beyond bodily death. Anthropologist Ellen Badone (2018)

attended the 2016 Afterlife Awareness Conference and wrote about After-Death

Communications and reciprocal relations between the dead and the living in North

America. Furthermore, Edith Turner (1993) highlights the importance of acknowledging

the narratives of individuals who experienced the presence or manifestation of their

24
deceased loved ones (see also Derrida 1994; Danely 2018; Allison 2021).

Anthropologist Lisa Stevenson (2014, 3) uses the expression “life beside itself” to

explore states of existence beyond the immediate physical realm among Canadian Inuit.

Sociologist Avery Gordon’s (2008) methodology, “haunting,” points to significant

absences, “ghosts.” These forced “disappearances” point to past experiences (such as

trauma, injustice, and inequalities) that persist in the present. These “ghosts,” then, elicit

collective memory. In this thesis, the “environmental ghosts” of the sixth wave of mass

extinction and environmental destruction are haunting us. Their disruption of our

complacency helps us to stay with the trouble.

In 2022, a trending hashtag on the social media platform Instagram was: “When I

die, I might as well come back as one of these.” It is a playful expression of the idea of

reincarnation or life beyond death, as users share their imaginative thoughts on what

form they might take in a hypothetical afterlife or reincarnated existence. A hashtag

related to reincarnation may indicate a cultural interest in exploring and discussing

existential questions in a light, humorous, and accessible way.

Revival of Home Funerals

The home funeral movement has historical roots in the mid 19th century. The

domestication of death care allowed the living to maintain a spiritual connection with the

dead and dying (Jackson 1977). With the rise of the professional funeral industry and

modern medicine, home funerals became less common. Historian Phillippe Ariès called

this change in attitudes a “reversal of death” (Aries 1974, 536), which shifts the focus

from death itself to the management of illness, from the home to the hospital. Ariès

suggests (1974) that this created a more silent approach towards death. Writer Jessica

25
Mitford (1963) critiques the commercialization and disenchantment of The American

Way of Death.

While personal concepts of death vary widely, anthropologist Margaret Lock

(2001) pointed to two prevalent discussions around a definition of death in North

America.

Advanced medical technology saw death as a clearly definable biological event.

Death, then, is the measurable cessation of neurological functions (Lock 2001). There is

in this view an implicit belief in the accuracy of technology.

Broader discussions, however, about what constitutes death included ideas of

selfhood. Away from a biological definition, people argued for a concept of death that

considers what it is that constitutes a person and the cessation of that person's

existence (societal definition) (Lock 2001).

Home funerals, also called “family- and community-led deathcare,” have returned

since the late 20th century. Home funerals can include washing and bathing the dead

body to honor it. The home funeral movement has an online presence, with How-to

guides about “DIY Coffins,” body care and preservation after death, natural burials, and

the outlining of legal requirements and paperwork for home funerals.

Depending on the state, there are different laws and restrictions in place. For

example, in Washington State, it is legal to care for a deceased person themselves

without licensed funeral professionals participating.

Green Burial Movement

Around 2000, natural death practices offered environmentally sensitive death

practices like natural organic reduction (“human composting”), home funerals (“DIY

26
funerals”), alkaline hydrolysis (“water cremation”), and biodegradable coffin burials

(made of wool or seagrass)4. Alternatively, forest burial and burial at sea can be but are

not limited to being eco-friendly. These practices and the interest in them are increasing

in the United States. According to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA)

report, more than 60% of the US Americans showed interest in green burials for various

reasons, including their positive environmental benefits and being more affordable than

traditional burials (NFDA 2023). In 2021 the number was at 55.7% (NFDA 2023).

Cremation has become the most prominent choice. In 2010, only 40% of the US

population opted for cremation and 53% chose burial, in 2023 the projected cremation

rate is at 60.5 and the projected burial rate is 34.5% (NFDA 2023).

Public discussions about conventional burial and cremation practices rarely

address environmental impacts, overlooking the ecological footprint of death practices.

For example, we did not anticipate that during the COVID-19 pandemic, counties would

suspend air-quality limits on local crematoriums to allow for an increased number of

cremations (Humayun and Maxouris 11 Jan. 2021). To dispose of the dead bodies, US

states strongly relied on cremation. It was a trade-off between the public health crisis of

COVID-19 and the environmental effects of cremation.

Death Awareness

The 1970s marked a significant period of private and public discourses on death

and dying. The death awareness movement aimed to change or at least alter how death

and dying are understood and talked about (Lofland, Troyer, and Francis 2019, 57-59).

4
Artist and designer Jae Rhim Lee's (2011) presented in a TED Talk a “mushroom death suit” for
supporting human composting and neutralizing toxins as part of the process of decomposting.
Unfortunately, I was not able to find recent updates about Rhim Lee’s (2011) “Infinity Burial Project,” and
her start-up’s website “www.coeio.com” was inactive in November 2023.

27
It also contemplated the “meaning of death and dying” (Lofland, Troyer, and Francis

2019, 68). Influential and educational thinkers who contributed to this death movement

are Lyn Lofland (The Craft of Dying 1978), Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (On Death and Dying

1969), and Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death 1973).

The “Natural Death Act” (70.122 RCW) allows adult people to make their own

choices in end-of-life care (such as the right to withhold life sustaining treatment, a

protection of individual autonomy and dignity).

“Death with Dignity Act” allows adult people that are terminally ill to opt for

medical aid in dying (MAiD). Physicians are not required to describe life-ending

medication, however. Oregon was the first state to legalize “Death with Dignity” in 1994.

Advocates of MAiD saw it as a medical procedure (that is as end-of-life medication),

while opponents to the practice saw it as medical-assisted suicide.

If a person is in palliative care, then, “terminal sedation” (also known as palliative

sedation), is a medical intervention at the end of life that can put the dying person into a

state of deep unconsciousness to ease pain and provide comfort. A non-medical

alternative is to voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED).

Death positive movement

Beginning in 2011, the Death Positive Movement seeks to change societal

attitudes and practices related to death and dying, and views death as part of a natural

life cycle. Death positivity encourages and explores alternative body disposition

practices and ways to memorialize the dead, such as eco-friendly burials and NOR

(Doughty 2017).

28
 The Death Positivity Movement utilizes a strong online presence to resist

prevailing norms, empower individuals to take control over end-of-life choices, and

educate them by providing access to alternative death care. This includes TED talks,

how-to-guides for supporting legislation, or community- and family-led death care, and

making price lists transparent. The Death Positivity Movement acknowledges each

person's individual experiences and beliefs, and so includes often suppressed

discussions about violent, traumatic, and non-natural deaths.

The movement promotes open conversations about mortality and advocates for

improved and diverse end-of-life care and decision-making (Lofland, Troyer and Francis

2019). In alignment with the Death Positive Movement, Death Cafes serve as

communal spaces where people come together to talk openly and mutually educate

each other about death and dying.

An end-of-life Doula (EOL doula), a “largely feminine profession” (Incorvaia 2023,

691), is experienced in deathbed guidance, providing information along with physical,

emphatic, and emotional support to a dying person and to the friends and family that are

part of the process, before, during, and after a death. EOL doula trainings align with

features of the Death Positive Movement: Death as a natural and non-medical event,

prioritizing person-centered care, and the potential for growth when one faces mortality

(Incorvia 2023). EOL doulas can create a larger system of connectedness. Medical

workers are fundamentally engaged in the management of life, while EOL Doulas stay

with dying people and their caregivers, families, and friends. EOL doulas offer various

practices of care such as the use of essential oils, meditation, sound therapy, and

active-listening conversations.

29
 CHAPTER THREE: METHODS FOR APPROACHING DEATH AND

DYING

Dying in Washington State

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission enforces the Funeral Rule. This rule,

which went into effect in April 1984, is a regulation that aims to protect the rights of

consumers when making funeral arrangements (e.g., embalming disclosure and

transparent price lists). However, each state is responsible for creating regulations to

govern the funeral industry and how dead bodies are cared for in that state. Washington

(WA) offers some of the most innovative and progressive dying and body disposition

practices in the US.

Before death one has several choices: Washington State in 1979 enacted the

“Natural Death Act”, excluding physician-assisted dying. The Washington “Death with

Dignity Act,” legalizing medical aid in dying (MAiD was formerly called

physician-assisted dying or suicide) for terminally ill adults, passed in November 2008,

and went into effect in March 2009. For those who do not oppose MAiD, it privileges the

dying (those who are physically able to take the medicine on their own and after the

expensive medicine is paid for) with a choice for ending life at their own pace.

After a person has died, home funerals are allowed in Washington State, but a

dead body must be deposited in an established cemetery. The cemetery requirement

becomes irrelevant once a dead body is broken down into a different form, which is the

case in cremation, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction (NOR).

Washington State law allows for the following dispositions of the body, which I

organized hereby their environmental impact:

30
 Conservation burials

Natural Burials on a conservation burial ground (protected wildlife conservation

areas) have the least lasting impact on the environment, while they also save land for

the benefit of human and more-than-human communities. An unembalmed body is

buried without a coffin or with an alternative coffin (such as made out of willow or

cardboard). The average financial costs run between $2000 - $4,000.

The conservation burial ground at White Eagle Memorial Preserve in WA invites

volunteers to work parties to participate in digging graves (Figure 1) for future deaths. It

took me and two other volunteers, two days, multiple tools, and one dog (for moral

support and play) to finish digging one grave that measures 7 feet x 3.5 feet, the optimal

depth for decomposition, and for masking odors from animals.

Figure 1: The tools (such as shovels, a digging bar, and a branch cutter) used to dig a
grave. The picture captures the result, after one day, of grave-digging.

31
 At the end of day two, after we finished digging the grave, I lay down in it. It

offered a beautiful view (Figure 2) and I enjoyed the numbing sound effect of the

surrounding earth. This experience had a calming effect on my partial nervousness

around my own death.

Figure 2: Picture taken from inside the finished hand-dug grave.

Other environment-friendly burial grounds include natural burial grounds, which

only allow for the use of biodegradable material for burial to minimize environmental

impact, and hybrid burial grounds, which allow for (but do not require) burial without a

vault.

32
 Natural organic reduction (NOR)

In contrast to conservation burial, the composting of a human body happens

indoors, above ground in a vessel and with technological intervention. The purpose of

NOR is not to displace conservation burials, but to provide the alternative of composting

in densely populated urban areas with limited burial spaces (Bennett and Davies 2015)

and as Katrina Spade said, an “alternative for cremation” (Let's Visit the Human

Composting Facility! October 15, 2023). NOR is “inspired by natural burials and home

funerals” (Let's Visit the Human Composting Facility! October 15, 2023), to give families

opportunities to be actively involved in the ceremonial care for the dead. Compared to

conservation burials the distinct disadvantages of NOR are:

- Material for NOR (such as alfalfa) has to be grown.

- Transporting of bodies and soil requires vehicles that emit CO2.

- Needed buildings and vessels.

Average costs run between $4,950 (without ceremony) up to $7,000. CO2 emissions

per person are (as of now) indeterminate (Campbell and Webster 2023).

Alkaline hydrolysis

Alkaline hydrolysis, also called water cremation, is a more eco-friendly alternative

to fire cremation. In a stainless steel reduction vessel, water, and chemicals like

potassium hydroxide, mixed and heated for 72 consecutive hours at a minimum

temperature of 131 Fahrenheit, dissolve the dead body, into what is called a

hydrolysate. Just like in the process of flame cremation, the remaining bones are

recovered, crushed, and added to the hydrolysate. The average cost is $3,500 (NFDA

33
2023). The process emits up to 200 lbs CO2 emissions per person (Campbell and

Webster 2023).

Flame cremation

For flame cremation, high heat in a cremation oven (usually between 1400 to

2100 Fahrenheit) reduces a body into ashes and bone fragments. The remaining bones

are recovered and mechanically crushed by a cremulator and added to the ashes. Up to

250 lbs of CO2 is emitted per person (Campbell and Webster 2023). “Cremation in an

open-air funeral pyre produces less CO2,” but is not allowed in WA (Fournier 2018,

35-36).

Ashes can be kept in an urn, scattered, or interred in a cemetery, or placed in a

columbarium. Human ashes can be detrimental to trees and plants. The effectiveness

or environmental impact of using ashes by adding them to a tree pod (in 2016 the

designers Francesco D’Angelo and Adriano Del Ferro, introduced their concept of tree

pods known as “Capsula Mundi” (Capsula Mundi. Life never stops. August 12, 2023)) to

grow a memorial tree still needs to be validated by scientific studies. Human ashes can

also be turned into a jewel, or art (ashes used in a cover to create memorial pottery or in

tattoo ink to create memorial tattoo), or a “reef ball.” For the latter, the ashes are mixed

with specialized almost pH-neutral concrete (and loved ones can participate in this

process and personalize it) forming a bell shape with holes in it. This “reef ball” will then

be placed under water, “preserving, protecting and enhancing the marine environment

for future generations” (About Reef Balls September 18, 2023), allowing fish and

microorganisms to grow and live there.

34
 WA has one of the highest cremation rates in the US at 78.6%. In 2015 the

cremation rate was 76.4% (NFDA 2023). The National Funeral Directors Association

(NFDA) predicts that WA will have cremation rates of 80% or higher by 2035 (NFDA

2023). The average cost is between direct cremation (when the body arrives at the

crematory, it is incinerated without ceremony) at $2,550 and cremation (with a funeral

ceremony) at $ 6,971.

The number of cremations continue to rise overall in the US, from 60.5% in 2023,

to a projected 81.4% by 2045 (NFDA 2023). According to the NFDA (2023), the world's

leading and largest funeral service association, the following factors drive the rise in

cremations: the low cost (54.4%); convenience/simplicity (42.5%); and personal

preference/family traditions (24.1%). Changes in religious attitudes have also impacted

the trend. Today there are fewer religious objections to cremation than previously. For a

variety of reasons more people are interested in a scattering of ashes in places that

were important to them (NFDA 2023).

Even though flame cremation is not considered a green death practice (because

of its consumption of energy and the emission of CO2), people consider it

environmentally friendly because a full-sized grave plot is generally not involved

(Fournier 2018). As the interviewee Annette (she/her) said: “Cremation feels green to

me. I'm not using much space and that's a thing” (09/18/2023).

Traditional burials (with or without embalming)

For a traditional burial a body can be embalmed or not. Burials can be in-ground

or in a Mausoleum. The US uses perpetual burial plots, creating “single-use gravesites”

(Coutts et. al 2018, 131), resulting in the continuous need for more land for cemeteries.

35
Embalming fluids, other chemicals, and many manufactured caskets have a negative

effect on the environment (Coutts et. al 2018). The average cost of a funeral with a

viewing is $7,848 (NFDA 2023).

Whole-Body donations

The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA), established in 1968, allows for organ

and tissue donation designation in the US. People can also donate their whole body to

science tobe used for research and medical education. There are various ways to keep

a body from deteriorating. One is the use of formaldehyde as a hard fixative, which

makes the body less lifelike (stiff and unrealistic) but also allows for a longer storage

time (Wyatt, Bagian, and Balta 2023). Another one is the use of a soft embalming

technique, which makes the body lifelike but allows only for a body storage of 6 months

(Wyatt, Bagian, and Balta 2023).

People consider donating their body for multiple reasons. Altruism is one, the

desire to help science and science education. Saving money is another reason. The

Willed Body Program at WSU will cover the “routine costs associated with body

donation” such as embalming and cremation after the body has been dissected, the

return of the ashes to loved ones or the optional burial of ashes at the Willed Body

Program community gravesite in the Palouse (Willed Body Program September 18,

2023). Other reasons are the possibility for prearrangement to lighten the burden of

decision-making after a person's death, and the influence of others who also signed up

for body donation programs (Smith et. al 2023).

36
Interviews, and participant observation

I collected my data during the Summer and Fall of 2023 in Washington State

(WA), an innovative and progressive deathscape in the US. I conducted 13 in-depth

person-centered semi-structured interviews. More specifically, I interviewed Death Care

Workers (DCW) located in Washington State online via Zoom, Teams, or in person. The

in-person interviews took place one-on-one in a cafe in Pullman Downtown (near the

DCW's workplace), at their home or workplace. Each interview consisted of 25

questions, with two questions requiring a three-word response. The questions were

organized with broader inquiries about jobs, beliefs, and the COVID-19 pandemic

impact at the beginning. More personal questions about experiences of death and dying

were placed intentionally later in the interview.The interviews lasted from one and a half

hours to two hours. Eleven interviewees identified as female or non-binary, and two

interviewees as male. I participated in one funeral home tour that turned into an

unstructured walking interview. To create a safe and open environment, I invited the

interviewees to ask me questions. When I felt it was appropriate, I shared personal

experiences (without being asked). This participatory approach contributed to a more

genuine and empathetic exchange of information. In this way, some of what I

experienced that was previously documented in the sensory lossography served to

inform and close the circle in my research.

On Zoom and in person, there were special moments of humility and gratitude for

me. I felt a great privilege to make deep connections with people, now no longer

strangers, who were so open and generous with their vulnerability, feelings, and

insights.

37
 In addition to interviews, I did 70 hours of participant observation. I participated in

various death-related activities and events in Seattle, Auburn, and the Palouse area,

events such as Death Cafes, support groups, sound therapy, grave digging on a

conservation burial ground, natural organic reduction sites and woodlands exploration,

and End-of-Life Doula online trainings.

Storying Death and Dying

In this thesis, I look into how DCW (re)orient to their experiences of loss and

grief, and how their sensory experiences help them to make sense of death, dying, and

care, and shape their subjectivity and sense of self.

I use the method of string figures (SF) to illustrate the interwoven nature of death

care, involving human beings and more-than-human beings (such as ecosystems,

microorganisms, machines, mushrooms, and environmental ghosts). From an SF

viewpoint I explore how we become-with many and how we confront our

response-ability for caring in a world marked by environmental, political, ethical, and

social injustices.

SF are a heuristic device: (Re)thinking-with and storying-with more-than-human

and human worlds threads new lines (Ahmed 2006) to which we (re)orient ourselves.

Telling stories that matter broadens our imaginations. We can make new worlds wherein

we become responsible-with many and adapt to new ways of approaching death, dying,

and grief.

In writing this thesis, as I connected SF to my sensory, ethnographic focus, I

began to think about SF as a fabric of sensory feelers. As a starting point, I wrote a

sensory lossography to reflect on and share my multisensory experiences of grief here

38
in the US. I described how touch, taste, sound, smell, and vision increased my

understanding and knowledge of my own grief. Writing a sensory lossography helped

me to orient myself in an unfamiliar moment in the face of death. Reflecting on my grief

through writing helped me to find meaning in my sensory experiences. Things like

objects and garments that “hold the DNA” (Alexander 2015), “memories to be

cherished” (Morrison 1999, 36), and “one's experience of the world” (Flaherty and

Throop 2018, 171) actually connected me to the dead, for me a relationship that, like

ghostly poetics, will interrupt the ordinary, and remind me of a continuous bond that

changes over time.

I focused on the senses when visiting funeral homes and participating in

death-related activities. I collected data by taking notes about what I saw, smelled,

touched, heard, and tasted. Those observations contributed to understanding aesthetics

and sensory elements provided by funeral homes to offer support to individuals in their

grief.

As a phenomenological research tool my in-depth interviews gave me insight into

how DCW describe and construct their experiences through their senses (Desjarlais

2003). It was interesting that during Zoom-interviews (given the physical distance),

interviewees invited me into the more intimate space of their homes from the very first

meeting, whereas my in-person interviews happened in a public space.

By analyzing sensory experiences we gain insights into how DCW, as

emphasized by anthropologist Sarah Pink (2015, 85), “situate themselves and their

experiences through specific sets of moralities, relationships and more.” As we analyze

a sensory experience we gain deeper insight into the emotional, embodied, relational,

and psychological aspects of death, dying, and grief. By focusing on sensory

39
experiences anthropologists gain knowledge about practices of memorialization (how

people remember and connect with their dead), and what cultural factors (including

moral considerations) shape death care practices.

In the following, I demonstrate how the sensory is vital in understanding death,

dying, and grief.

40
 CHAPTER FOUR: STORIES OF DEATH AND DYING IN WASHINGTON

STATE

Death, care, and co-poiesis

Co-poiesis, a term used by social scientists, is the act of creating and making

together-with. In this section I employ the term co-poiesis to work with the ideas of

anthropologist Robert Desjarlais (2018, 255). Co-poiesis aligns with Haraway’s (2008,

2016) concept of becoming-with and acknowledges Ozawa-de Silva’s (2021) idea of

shared processes of meaning-making in subjectivity. Co-poiesis is also part of the

process of reorientation.

Death is woven into the fabric of human existence. The “fraught process of

death” (Straight 2006, 107) requires care-ful commitment and ongoing attention of the

living. Anthropologist Robert Hertz (1960) argues that death is a social event: The

afterlife begins with the separation of the soul from the physical body. Hertz (1960)

identifies three central entities involved in the death process: the soul, the corpse, and

the mourners. According to Hertz (1960, 193), the care for the corpse by the mourners

is crucial for the “salvation of the soul.” Hertz suggests a connection and responsibility

between rituals performed by the living and the well-being of the soul. To expand upon

Hertz's definition here, I would propose adding the DCW to the death process. This as a

recognition of the role they play in the transition between dying and after death

incorporates a broader more relational perspective of care.

Physical death is not always connected with a traveling soul. For interviewee

Lola (she/her), a trained End-of-Life Doula, the dead move between “dwelling spaces of

the living and the dead” (Straight 2006, 106). Lola says,

41
 I do feel like the spirit lingers for a little while, and then it moves on most of the
time it moves on to a space where it's kind of like getting its bearings and
wherever it is, and then once that next shift kind of happens, then it can kind of
come back around. So when people get visitations from past loved ones, I feel
like there is kind of a lot of activity, right, right at the beginning, once the person
has passed over and then there may be a space where they don't sense that
person. And then after a while they are able to sense that person again. [...] A
few times what I've experienced with very newly dead bodies is I can still see
them breathing out of the corner of my eye. I've noticed this multiple times.It's
almost like their spirit is still there. So it's like with ghosts who hold on, like
wander the same path. In theory, it's like the body is so used to breathing that
you still see that rise and fall of like the spirit breathing or I don't know how to
describe it. But that's something that I've experienced is seeing the dead body
breathe. It's almost like their spirit is still there. It's like with ghosts held on, like
wandering the same path… [...] The spirit is breathing… or I don't know how to
describe it… but that's something that I've experienced is seeing the dead body
breathe... but it's not the body breathing… [...] After death, the physical body will
go back into the Earth and the spirit will go wherever it goes. (09/24/2023)

Even though there is a separation between the spaces of the living and dead,

Lola suggests that, for the deceased, this division is not rigid, and so the dead can exist

and move around in both spaces. She recognizes that the spirit of the dead continues to

have a presence in the world of the living and that the bonds with the spirit of the dead

will change over time. Lola has a sensory awareness of the spirit breathing. It is not

physical breathing but a sensory perception that transcends the five senses. Lola

implies an interconnectedness with the dead beyond physical boundaries. Death, then,

is not the end of a person’s existence, allowing the spirit to remain and wander. As Lola

perceives it, this fact can comfort and offer a connection to the living and offer the

possibility of continuing bonds between the living and dead (co-poiesis). When

describing her experience of the spirit breathing, Lola struggled to find words, this left

her description somewhat vague. Perhaps this lack of vocabulary for describing a

sensation beyond the physical realm points to a “hypocognized” aspect of experience in

the US (Levy 1973).

42
 Lola’s notion that the presence of the dead persists brings to light another

question: Do the dead have a form of agency that is enacted through their body?

Agency does not end with death and is intricately linked to the physical dead body. The

ritualistic engagement of the living with the dead’s person “soul” (Hertz 1960) implies a

mutuality of agency. Anthropologist Desjarlais (2018) describes how the Hyolmo people

of Nepal, through ritual and the collective participation of the living, separate the

deceased's identity from the physical realm, and guide the spirit to the next realm before

its rebirth. The deceased rely on the living to dissolve the self of the dead (Desjarlais

2018, 255).

In the context of Trobriand death rituals, anthropologist Annette Weiner (1976)

describes the concept of “untying” of individuals after death from their mortal

relationships. Agency is relational, and death and dying, as co-poiesis (Desjarlais 2018),

shape and reshape identities.

My interviewees also described a co-poietic shaping and reshaping of identities

and narratives after death. Here are some examples:

ANNETTE’S FATHER

In the Catholic Church, [...] they have an open casket. I remember, because my
dad was a carpenter, we snuck a couple of carpenter's pencils, and we stuck
them in his pocket because the casket was open. It was just so lovely. I just love
this. No one said: “Hey, now, when Dad dies, we're all going to do this.” Well, you
don't know what you're going to do.
But I remember I touched him. I touched his hand and I went, It was just so
interesting. It was just in the moment. It was cold, and it was hard. I thought, Oh,
that's right. Because see, in the world that I am in, I touch you before you've
been involved. I had forgotten that that's what it was going to be like. [...] But I'd
forgotten it was going to be that way, and it was just that second of “Oh, all right.
Yes, that's how it is.” So helpful to know that, right?

43
 Yeah, but it was so fun, all these impromptu things, just knowing what to do for
my dad. [...] Little things, always little things. (09/18/2023)

Annette is a female Death Care Worker in the Palouse area. Annette’s

reflections are an example of co-poiesis. Annette noticed that her embalmed father did

not feel the same when she touched him. She experienced a perceptible change from

the warmth and softness of her father’s hands to cold and hard. Annette recognized the

physical reality of the dead body and the absence of how her father felt when he was

alive. This sensory encounter (through touch) marked a profound moment of realization

about the reality of the death of her father.

Another strong example of a co-poietic practice is when Annette and her family

snuck carpenter pencils into her dead father’s suit during the open-casket ceremony. By

providing pencils for the father to carry, the family expressed their shared subjective

understanding of the fathers continuing identity as a carpenter beyond death. This

tactile interaction with the dead body created a sensory connection with the deceased,

dissolved the boundary between the living and the dead, and suggested that the dead

father could be attentive to this gesture of love and care. Annette’s actions reflect the

belief that actions performed after death can be significant for the dead, and thereby

manifest a form of relational agency.

The family’s placing the pencils is a form of becoming-with the dead, and

symbolizes a shared and ongoing interconnectedness (the relational nature of self)

between the family, the dead, and the individuals. Through this authentic collective

experience during the open-casket ceremony the grieving family created a sense of

group identity and belonging among each other - an embodiment of what anthropologist

Victor Turner (1969) called “communitas.” These shared connections help grievers to

44
reconfigure their identities in the face of loss and contribute to processes of

meaning-making in the transformative event of death.

LUISA, HENRY, HANNAH, LEO

Interviewee Luisa (she/her) said, “First of all, I am scared of drowning.” For her,

this fear excluded alkaline hydrolysis (“water cremation”) as an option for her body

disposition. Interviewee Henry (he/him) preferred a minimal intervention:

Put me in the ground. I'm a natural man. We come out of the earth, and the earth
eats us when we die. That's the natural way. I thought about donating my body to
science, but I'm a little too superstitious for that. […] I'm afraid it might hurt when
[they cut open my body]. (08/18/2023)
Henry’s response reveals a distinct co-poietic relationship with nature. He rejects

a dominant Western epistemology that divides culture from nature. Instead of lying in a

traditional lined sealed coffin, he prefers to be put into the ground in an eco-friendly way.

Interviewee Mona (she/her) wants to avoid the restrictive feeling of a bra when

lying dead in her casket:

I really don't want anybody to put a bra on me when I die! [...] My friend and I joke
about things often because we teach a class on taking care of people when
they're dying, and so we often tell each other things, like, “Don't you put a bra on
me when I die.” Those are important details just to make sure. [...] No bra,
please. No, I don't need that. (09/19/2023)
In death Mona wants to let go of the societal convention that prescribes covered

breasts for women.

When asked about her greatest worry about death, interviewee Hannah (she/her) said,

I'm a little bit overweight, and I don't want to be considered like one of the
chubbies when people are moving me around [after death]. I'm just a big girl, you
know? So the thought of somebody handling my body and me being super
vulnerable and floppy and squishy [shaking her head in disgust]. That is why I
want [name of a woman] to take care of me. I trust her with my whole being.
(09/26/2023)

45
 Hannah feels vulnerable and believes she should, to quote Ahmed (2006, 60)

“take up less space.” Hannah’s expressed embodied sensibility (her discomfort) is a

physical manifestation of her response towards gendered expectations around being a

woman in the US (Ahmed 2006). Hannah’s vulnerability to internalized societal norms

and values are as valid for her in death as they are in life.

Leo said, “You only call the Funeral Home when you're ready, [when you were]

able to put your mom's favorite lipstick on her and straighten her hair up so she wouldn't

be embarrassed to have her body seen in that state” (9/21/2023).

The DCW’s stories point not only to imagined sensations of a fear of being

wrongly declared dead (Pernick 1988; Lock 2001) but also to the psychology of fear of

pain and vulnerability in the US (Asmundson et. al 2004; Harjunen 2017). However,

these stories also support the idea of death as a co-poiesis. Death does not entirely

sever the relationship between the living and the dead. The stories suggest that the

deceased body continues to experience something - something like awareness.

And so it is that relational agency shapes the mourners' care for the dead. The

dead rely on the mourner to put on the deceased’s “favorite lipstick” and “straighten

their hair” so the dead “don’t have to be embarrassed” (Leo 9/21/2023). The living act

on behalf of the dead. Simultaneously, the living show love and kindness by caring for

the dead.

The DCW's stories suggest that there is no simple Cartesian dualism5 and that

life and death are not separate from each other but are intertwined (Stevenson 2014;

Lambek 2015; Desjarlais 2018; Danely 2018).

5
The philosophical concept of Cartesian dualism posits that the mind and body are separate.

46
 The sensory can impact co-poiesis. Mona, in accord with her Bahá'ís faith,

emphasized the importance of a rapid burial within 24 hours after her death:

I would want to be buried in a casket. I would be wherever I die. So if I'm

traveling, I would likely be buried wherever I was. I was just in Louisiana this
weekend, so if I had died in Louisiana, I would likely be buried in Louisiana, in a
casket, not embalmed. (09/19/2023)
Mona is committed to her religious beliefs in life and death. She wants to be

buried in a casket no matter her location at the time of her death. If she dies on a

journey away from her home, she accepts the distance from her family, children, and

friends. On the one hand, loved ones possibly will not have a close sensory connection

(e.g., lack of touch and in-person vision) with her dead body. At the same time, being

buried in accord with her religious beliefs is for her and her loved ones a meaningful

co-poietic event.

Isolated deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic created uncertainty, as Leo

experienced it, affecting the co-poietic process of her grief:

My uncle died during COVID and it has been surprising how much grief I'm still
dealing with on that one. I feel like the grief for my uncle is still so constant that I
haven't been able to deal with the timeline very well. It's all kind of a mishmash. I
still have dreams about him pretty much every night and I forget all the time that
he died because I wasn't part of the process at all.
One of the reasons that people are so passionate about open caskets and
viewings and things like that is that seeing and touching really helps you process
that someone is gone.
And we didn't get to do any of that stuff with him. And so it feels like a very
abstract concept, that it happened, even though I intellectually know that it
happened, like my subconscious isn't there yet.
I've seen by myself how COVID has really changed what grief looks like. We
normally have these things where we gather. And it really gets to sink in that
these losses have happened and it feels so weird to not be able to remember
that someone died. (9/21/2023)
Leo tells us about the disruption of her traditional grief process as a result of not

being present at her uncle's death or by not participating in funeral rituals. How Leo

47
relates to her uncle and her disbelief in his death has left him neither dead nor alive in

some way.

Leo’s story reminded me of the artist Antoine d’Agata’s thermographic images

captured during the COVID-19 pandemic in France. D’Agata shows humans’, reduced

to their thermodynamic processes, fragility, disconnection, and vulnerability, during a

pandemic. See Figure 3.

Figure 3: Lockdown and physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020
Paris, France, “Lockdown” © Antoine d’Agata / Magnum Photos.

There is a certain adaptability when it comes to co-poiesis. When her uncle's

ashes arrived at Leo’s home, she initiated a co-poietic process by introducing friends,

who came to visit her, to her uncle(‘s ashes). Leo makes coffee for the friends and her

uncle, as a way to remember him, who “loved coffee.” Having the physical ashes helps

48
Leo to acknowledge her uncle’s death, but also allows for his ongoing ghostly presence.

His death became less abstract, and their connection more co-poietic. She has his urn

in sight from her work desk.

Furthermore, Leo showed me a painting that a friend created in memory of her

uncle. She proudly presented this artwork to me, kept in sight from her work desk. As

Leo said, she hopes that the constant visual reminders of her uncle will support her in

the process, that “grief might feel different over time” (9/21/2023).

If death is considered a co-poiesis (the living and dead becoming-with each

other), then anthropologists can explore how sensory experiences shape grief, and how

acts of memorialization contribute to new understandings of death and dying.

Negotiating end-of-life care and death care

As interviewee Hannah’s narrative illustrates, normative societal narratives that

we internalize (see also Briggs 1970; Hollan 1988) shape individuals' experiences and

perceptions of death, dying, and end-of-life care. How death is talked about, rituals

surrounding death, and cultural expectations related to mourning can all contribute to

the construction of identities and subjectivity.

Subjectivity encompasses “acts of identification and disidentification” (Mageo

2003, 7). Identities include “one’s self experience, and affective, historical, and bodily

relationships” (Ewing 2002, 95). Social agreements bring about identities (Mageo 2022),

which drive our understanding of how a DCW and a person (receiving care) should be.

Ideologies (systems of belief) shape laws, education, media, societal norms and

expectations. Power structures serve ideologies. People can be “hailed” into an identity

by a person embedded in an ideological framework; this process is called interpellation

49
(Althusser 1971, 247). By way of interpellations, people internalize certain norms, social

agreements, and identities which influence their perceptions and actions. Butler (1997)

developed Althusser’s idea further introducing the idea of injurious interpellations.

Interpellations, then, are harmful by imposing limiting or reductive identities on

individuals (Butler 1997). Despite the potential injury, imposed identities can be resisted

or reinterpreted, or using Butler’s term, injurious interpellations can be a site of “radical

reoccupation and resignification” (1997, 104).

Here I apply the concept of injurious interpellations and the potential for

re-significations (re-orientation) to the relationships of death care, starting with

interviewee Leo’s example:

LEO

On Zoom, I met with Leo (she/they), a Death Care Worker from Seattle. She

advocates for Death Education. When I asked her about the accessibility of Death Care,

she responded:

Everything is kind of chaotic [around death and dying]. Everybody's kind of

coming and going, there are medications and doctor appointments and rushing
around and worrying. Once a person dies, all of that stops, and that might be the
first chance that you've had to sit and breathe, you know? Or maybe that's the
first chance that you got to be alone with the person… to say goodbye in your
own way. Everything about caring for them has been very chaotic up until this
point, and it can be so meaningful just to take a second or a couple of hours or a
day. Everybody's needs are a little bit different, and for many people, you know,
they're kind of squeamish about the idea of touching a dead body.
We think of death as an emergency. We don't take the time. We're too scared.
You know, we wanna go, go, go. And sometimes, that process makes us make
quick decisions that might not be the right ones. If you think of death as an
emergency, you're just gonna find the first Funeral Home and the first
transportation, and you're just going to do that. But that might not be you. If you
have a little more time, you might be able to find a Funeral Home that's maybe
closer or more affordable, or maybe one where you really liked the person who
answered the phone. They made you laugh even though you were sad. Getting
people to understand that death is not an emergency is really powerful. It's also

50
 really provocative. It can be really tough to get people to consider [going slow]
because they've always been raised to think that death is an emergency. But
yeah, if you really think about it, it’s not. It can be such a game changer for the
process of your grief, or if you get to show your kindness or to do little things that
show love to people [if you stay with the dead body longer]. [...] Or just feeling
like you had a chance to say your own goodbye or say a prayer or, you know, call
the rest of your family over. So they can all say goodbye before the body leaves.
It's very meaningful. (9/21/2023)

I asked Leo what message she would like to share with others about death and dying,

and she responded:

Death is normal and healthy. We expend a lot of energy and resources trying to
avoid it and to not talk about it and to not think about it, and that sort of shame is
very internalized, and I think that's a lot of harm if we could admit to ourselves
that maybe we want to see a gross thing, or maybe we think something is very
beautiful or meaningful and maybe someone else might think it's dark or gross.
People worry really a lot about being perceived as morbid or weird, but I think
there are curiosities by and large, are very healthy, and just part of being a
person is being curious about things.

I think that if people felt that they were safer and expressing those curiosities and
those anxieties, I just think they'd feel a lot better. [...] I think maybe I'm the weird
one. Like when I was a kid and acting out the way that I think grief is supposed to
be. But I think that people are doing the same thing all the time, and they just
don't know that they're doing it. So I think that that awareness would be just a
real game changer. But you know, it's hard. It's not an easy solution. If it was, I
would have already done it and retired. I wish more people didn't feel so much
shame about that. People whisper to me all the time “This is So weird. It's so
bad. It's so gross this thing I want to know.” And they'll just say the most normal
thing, and you're just like, how long have you been worried about that?
(9/21/2023)

The societal script of “death as an emergency” is injuriously interpellating DCW.

The societal script calls upon the DCW to perceive death as an urgency. The DCW act

because they desire social acceptance and fear shame or judgment and therefore

respond to that “hail” by immediate action.

51
 Individuals act with awareness of certain constraints while being unaware of

others (Ortner 2005). The injurious interpellation “death as an emergency” restricts or

prohibits people from spending more time with their dead. DCW subordinate (Butler

1997) their authentic responses to deathcare to their alignment with societal norms. As

Leo points out, the internalization of shame motivates this subordination. DCW, then,

enact predetermined roles (covering the basic need to stay attached to others) rather

than expressing authentic reactions (by being openly curious).

Injurious interpellations create a disconnection or tension between a person's

authentic self and a person’s need for attachment to social approval. Such impositions

impact DCWs well-being.

Importantly, restrictions of injurious interpellation can be re-signified (Butler

1997). Leo re-signifies by explaining to her grievers to not immediately call after a death

and encourages them to prioritize their own authentic responses. Leo, by saying that

caring for the dead is a meaningful process, supports the emotional well-being of the

mourners. This can empower the DCW to act in a (more) authentic way.

LOLA

Lola talked about the hands-on death care for her grandmother:

My most important loss was probably my grandmother. [...]. I flew over right after
she died, and I did work with the funeral director a little bit to help, like, put
makeup on her and dress her. And really got involved because that was the time
that I was already a [End-of-life Doula] and wanted to be more involved in the
hands-on care of my grandmother's body. [...] And I tend to her in a really loving
way because she was somebody who I loved my entire life. (09/24/2023)

I asked her if others of her family or friends of her grandmother also had that kind of
participation. Lola said:

A little bit.. because seeing me do it gave them that unspoken permission, and
sometimes that's all that is needed because people aren't sure what they are

52
 allowed to do or what is appropriate. But when I first arrived, my mother also had
flown in, and we asked to see her body. And she had been embalmed, but she
hadn't been, like, fully prepared yet. And so we got to spend time with her. And
that's when I asked for a small envelope and scissors, and I braided some of her
beautiful silver hair. And I was with my mother and my aunt. And they're like, we
want to do that, too. And my aunt, I think, said “I wanted to do that, but I wasn't
sure if it was OK.” I'm just like: “Of course, it's OK.” So we all together with my
mother and my aunt, were able to take a piece of her hair. They were very
supportive and it was comforting to them to see that I could be really hands-on
with her. We're not just putting her care in the hands of strangers. We can really
be there and present and hands-on. (09/24/2023)

Lola's actions served as a model for her aunt and mother. Lola’s mother and aunt

felt unsure about how to participate in death care. Lola’s sharing an “unspoken

permission” is a re-signification. She encouraged her aunt and mother to participate in

hands-on death care by providing a visual example of braiding her grandmother’s hair

and touching the deceased. Instead of leaving care just to the professionals, all three

actively participated in caring for the dead beloved and acted in authentic ways. Lola

braided her grandmother's hair and kept it as an attachment with her grandmother.

When her aunt and mother followed her in doing the same, they created a collective

sense of grief, support, and authentic attachment to each other (communitas). The

tactile engagement with the grandmother created an intimate sensory memory fostering

a deeper connection with the dead, her family, and Lola herself.

In her work as an End-of-Life Doula, Lola also incorporates the sensual:

One of the first things I'll do when someone calls me and I need to go to see
them. I'll bring tea and I'll pick some herbs from my garden and make a quick
little bundle, usually with some rosemary, mugwood, and lavender. A little thing.
So one of the first things I do is I hand them a little herb bundle and that already
is just like nonverbal comfort. They'll kind of like start playing with it and smelling
it. So they have that aromatherapy that's just unspoken while we're talking.
(09/24/2023)

By means of fragrant herbs Lola provides aromatic comfort to the grievers. This sensory

experience can have a calming effect in grief, fostering a more relaxed atmosphere

53
between the grieving individual and Lola. This incorporation of sensory elements, offers

comfort beyond verbal communication and enhances the holistic well-being of the

griever.

A MOTHER

Interviewee Luisa handed me a printed-out story from a mother who was not sure if she

would be strong enough to wash the body of her deceased child, but a

mothering instinct overpowered any lingering uncertainty.” She described it as a

last gesture of love: “The constriction in my chest had loosened a little, and I
could take a breath for the first time in days. And even though the river of grief
continued to roil around us during [her son’s] bath, [my partner and I] had
momentarily found our footing in the extraordinary task of two parents caring for
their child. It gave me hope that we were grounded enough to find our way
forward. (04/24/2019)

Through care by touch, the washing became a last authentic gesture of love toward her

son’s body. By connecting with her son in that tactile way she fostered her own

well-being in grief and created a new relationship (co-poiesis). As death-advocate

Sharon (she/her) said:

What I learned when I was 14, was that a lot of us grieve by doing. We need an
outlet. We need to be busy. Our hands need to be busy. For those of us who
have a loved one that we are next to kin, we are responsible. There is nothing
that feels better than to wash that person's hair for the last time and bathe their
bodies, stroke their hands. It's indescribable. The idea of sending my parents off
to have somebody else touch their beautiful body was beyond me. I couldn't do it.
I think more people who realize they're not helpless, realize that they can
contribute and be part of this. I think that we're going to see a real evolution. We
are seeing a big evolution in death care, and this is really critically important. [...]
It matters. The more people who read about it and see it and read the stories, the
better.
Sharon emphasizes the profound, “indescribable,” and co-poietic experience of death

care. She encourages others, through sharing stories and advocacy, to actively,

hands-on participation, re-signifying (drawing on Butler 1997) ideas of death care.

54
 ANNETTE AND HER MOTHER

“If you get an inkling, follow your inkling,” Annette (09/18/2023) told me. Being a

native speaker of German, I had never heard the word inkling before. She described an

inkling as an idea, inspiration, or a kind of intuition that is sometimes pushed down. To

illustrate her concept of an inkling, I tell the story of Annette's dying mother here.

Annette’s mother lived in Georgia, while Annette lived in WA.

At some point, [my mother couldn’t] really talk. She was confused in her mind, of
course, and so that was all okay. I said: Well, I need to do something. I wrote her
a note every day. I'm not struck with lightning. I don't call home every day. This
isn't me. But I thought, Duh. I wrote something every day to her. I wrote a card to
her for probably 35 days. No matter what time I finally got home [...] I would just
say what I was doing or whatever. My sister, Sam, unbeknownst to me, was in
her bedroom. She was putting [the notes] on the wall so [my mother] could see
across the room that this is... Because I couldn't call. I mean, she couldn't hear
me. She couldn't speak. [My sister] would read them to her. I know... I said: Do
this. I just did it. It just made sense at the moment. Then, my sister gave them
back to me after she died. [...] It's such a little piece of history. Again, we just
know if we just... If you get an inkling, follow your inkling. Don't question it. Just
whatever it is. If it's an inkling, you should probably be doing it. [...] You have to
roll. I mean, life is just like death is in any moment. It's not convenient. It's not
what you think it's going to be. You just enter into what you get. (09/18/2023)

To reinforce their mother-daughter relationship, Annette wrote notes to her

mother and engaged in what is called phatic communication, communication aimed at

maintaining or strengthening relationships. After her mother’s death Annette’s sister

gave her the notes back. The notes memorialize her mother, a “little piece of history,” as

she called it (09/18/2023). Annette’s narrative reconstruction integrated her mother's

death into her ongoing life story while also, in an authentic way, made for an attachment

beyond death.

55
 The uncertainty of death and dying create unfamiliar worlds. By reclaiming our

authenticity in attachment to the dead and living we can make unfamiliar worlds again

more familiar. This changes us and enables us to make new meanings and new

connections with ourselves and others, to adopt new practices of death care: Leo telling

her customers not to rush their death care, Lola cutting a piece of hair, Annette writing

notes, and a mother washing the body of her dead son. All DCWs advised in various

ways to trust your intuition - your authentic self - “those moments when you want to but

you are not sure if it is OK” (Lola 09/24/2023).

Death and dying bring uncertainty, but, as Stevenson (2014, 2) points out,

uncertainty necessitates not a solution but an acknowledgment, or, as Annette

(09/18/2023) said: “You just have to enter into whatever you get.” To care for the dying

and dead can mean to dwell in uncertainty as a way to become-with each other. In the

face of uncertainty, connecting with one’s authentic self and that of the dying or dead

person becomes a mutual form of care. Authentically becoming-with many is a practice

of care, connection, making new stories, and “reenchanting” death care practices (Lee

2003).

However, in following the SF of death care, it is crucial to stay with the trouble

(Haraway 2016) by being attentive to the structures of power, subordination, and

oppression (Butler 1977; Ortner 2005; Ahmed 2006; Haraway 2016).

Disorientation and re-orientation in end-of-life care and death care

Queerness

Queerness challenges the line of straight orientation by disrupting

heteronormative images and expectations of family, kinship and societal imperatives

56
(like laws and legal rights that regulate who takes care of a dead body), particularly

when individuals face estrangement or rejection from their biological families.

Ahmed discusses how bodies become disoriented, for example, in relation to

gender and race, with sexual orientation being a question of both how and with whom

we inhabit our life spaces. For Ahmed (2006, 91-92) the "straight line6” is an orientation

- that is a group-level sharing - towards compulsory heterosexuality. This shaping of

behavior limits the capacity for seeing and reaching toward alternate sexual orientations

other than those to the “opposite sex.”

The failure to tend towards this sexual ideal can create disorientation and affects

how one lives in the world (2006, 91). Disorientation from those “straight lines” can be

uncomfortable, but according to Ahmed, also holds the potential for questioning present

worlds and for finding new meanings through a “new angle” (2006, 162). Disorientation

reveals the arbitrariness of accepted norms (2006, 87), and deviating from a norm

creates productive moments or “radical potentials” (Ahmed 2023).

Lola advocates for advanced care directives within LGBTQI+ communities and

offers legal support to ensure chosen family members have rights over an individual's

body after death:

I think that it is really helpful for your psyche around it and really helpful for those
around you [to prepare for death and dying]. One thing they do is really advocate
for advanced care directives for people. Not only does it help your loved ones to
know what your markers are like when you would want to pull the plug, so to
speak, if there was a sudden accident, and what you would and would not do in
that liminal space, when you can't speak for yourself and what your method of
disposition is, and most importantly, who you want to be able to make those
decisions for you and who you want to be able to have custody of your body
when you die. I exist in a realm of a lot of subcultures, a lot of… like the LGBTQ
community and communities who are maybe othered by religious families and
don't have an association with them. There have been people who I've seen in
6
Ahmed uses the metaphor of the “straight line” representing the straightness of heterosexuality:
“Compulsory heterosexuality operates as a straightening device, which rereads signs of queer desire as
deviations from the straight line” (Ahmed 2006: 23)

57
 my extended community who have died suddenly, and then all of a sudden the
estranged mother or father takes their body, and maybe dead names them,
misgenders them, and gives them a funeral that was not true to who they were. I
help people with the paperwork so that they can decide what chosen family they
want to have those legal rights over their body when they die and so that they
can be properly honored on death. [...] I do a lot of free and sliding-scale work for
advocacy, like for the LGBTQ [and non-binary] community. I will do free
Advanced Care directive workshops to make sure that their chosen family can
have legal rights over them. I'm also a notary public, so I can notarize and make
their paperwork legal right there. (09/24/2023)
The example highlights inequities and fears faced by queer individuals when it

comes to end-of-life care: The fear of estranged family members taking control,

misnaming or misgendering the deceased, and not honoring their true identity. Othering,

as Ahmed (2006, 115) states, becomes a “form of extension.” By providing advocacy

and legal support, Lola re-orientates marginalizing norms by ensuring that LGBTQI+

identities are respected in death. Chosen families become recognized, thereby opening

up possibilities for different ways of being and relating in the world, challenging and

questioning established norms, and allowing for giving agency and recognition to queer

individuals. Disorientations, then, as feminist philosopher Amu Harbin (2012, 272)

argues “help us better recognize relationality when they highlight how all possibilities for

action are constituted through complex relationships with others. They contribute to an

increased awareness of vulnerability, and encourage the questioning of social norms

(Harbin 2012, 272-276).

Disorientation prompts a rethinking of kinship and family, allowing for greater

recognition of relationality, and reclaiming agency, and promoting and encouraging an

inclusive approach to the death and dying of queer individuals and communities.

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 Racism

People with marginalized racial identities can become disoriented. As Leo states,

racism has a lasting impact on People of Color, also after death:

There are issues that are so big that not one person can fix them, like racism.
You know, a lot of people think, “Oh, when you're dead, racism doesn't impact
you.” And it's just like NO. If you're a person of color and you've lived your whole
life dealing with racism in all kinds of different ways, you know, you likely live a
shorter life because of a condition called weathering. The constant social
pressure, anxiety, and fear that you live with as your normal actually shortens
your lifespan and the likelihood that your family has fewer assets to be able to
use to pay for your care. Or that you can find a Funeral Home that is familiar with
your traditions. One thing is when you go to a Mortuary school, and you learn
how to embalm bodies, you learn it on white bodies. So you don't learn how to
care for the hair of black people. And if you're a funeral director and you've never
styled a black person's hair, you never learn. And so you don't know how to do it
when the person that has died is black. And so, how do you make them look just
as beautiful as someone else if you don't know the unique things that their body
needs?
I have a colleague [...], and she teaches classes to help funeral directors learn
how to care for the hair of black bodies. Because just no one ever taught you to
be like: “Wait a minute, you guys?” (sarcastically). [...] You know, imagining living
a shorter life, making it harder for your family to afford to care for you, finding a
place that can do it while and then maybe at your funeral at your open casket,
like you have really terrible hair. [...] The person clearly didn't know what you
were doing. And so you don't even look good, [...] these things, they really do
persist. And that's very discouraging. Race is a big factor, and it's really tied up in
socioeconomics and can be very limiting. A lot of times, they can make people
compromise on the type of care that they want because they don't know they're
allowed to fight for it. [...]
There's a really clear power differential between being a customer and being a
funeral director, and I always explain it to people like when you go to the doctor
and when you go in, you expect the doctor to be the expert. And so if they say
this is the thing, this is what's wrong with you, and this is what you need to do.
You're gonna do it, or you're not gonna do it. You're not gonna tell them because
you don't want them to be mad at you, or you don't want them to think you
question them or like you're supposed to respect them because they're powerful.
Many doctors don't like it when you question them or ask for more information.
You're just supposed to respect that power. We see that a lot in funeral homes
where even if the funeral director has very good intentions and wants to be
supportive and deferential, the family knows that the funeral director is the
powerful one. And so they might not push back on things that are important.
They might not ask questions. They might not disagree because they think, “Ohh,
the funeral director is the expert, and I'm supposed to do what they say.” And that
really hurts a lot of families, you know, even if the funeral director wants to give
them everything they want, they just might not know to ask.

59
 And so the family doesn't want to be the one to argue because they think that
they have to respect that power differential. And it's really hard to teach people
that this person works for you. You know, like if you don't like them, you fire them.
You just go somewhere else. There are so many funeral homes, you just go
wherever you want, like you can fire your doctor. You know. People don't know
that you can do that because they're raised to respect that power. And so I think
that hurts a lot of families. And it's more likely to affect people who, throughout
their entire lives, have been subject to that power differential, especially if you
know that the funeral director is like an old white man. That's like peak power.
(9/21/2023)
Coming to terms with staying with the trouble, Leo addresses differences in

agency in death and dying and access to quality end-of-life care. Denials of agency may

include neglecting the wishes expressed by the deceased, disregarding their cultural or

religious practices, lack of cultural competence in the funeral industry by “not knowing

how to prepare black hair,” dismissing multiple marginalized identities (like race7,

disability, gender, access to information, and culturally insensitive barriers) and power

differentials between funeral directors and customers (see also Zengin 2019). Dying is

directly related to factors of economic standing, physical and mental health, access to

information, and to a caregiving relationship.

Interviewee Leo said, “People call death a great equalizer, and it's very much

not.” Social barriers impede people’s chances of dying the way they want to.

Socioeconomic, cultural, and healthcare disparities impact a person's ability to

experience a death that aligns with their wishes and values, and as sociologists David

Field, Jenny Hockey and Neil Small (1997, 1) said, “worldly inequalities are in no way

leveled at the time of death but persist, permeating every aspect of death and dying.” As

Leo summarized it: “Ageism, racism, bigotry, misogyny, and all of the isms are still a

problem when you're dying.”

7
When talking about race within this academic research, I am referring to the social conception of the
term in US discourse.

60
 Leo highlights how people relate to authority figures in death care, by

compromising on “the type of care wished for.” Leo explains how it is necessary not to

passively perceive one’s role in this care relationship, but to realize, reclaim, and act on

one’s agency by articulating and expressing needs and wishes to maintain

response-able care for oneself and the person cared for. People re-orient when they

exercise their agency, by questioning, resisting, and challenging established systems of

authority and privilege, and so make choices that align with their values and ideals.

These enacted priorities, then, can lead to new spaces for more open communication

and can make possible and reinforce orientations towards equality and inclusivity in

death care. Simultaneously, it is important that people considered in power (such as

funeral home owners, embalmers, and funeral directors) examine systemic inequities in

death care, and that they actively engage in and listen to conversations about race and

racism. They should train for cultural competency and anti-racism (for example by

learning how to professionally style black hair). Death care needs to provide supportive

and inclusive environments, to “reorientate our relation” to death and dying (Ahmed

2006, 155).

Intersectionality, a term coined by a scholar of critical race theory Kimberlé

Crenshaw (1989), emphasizes the interconnectedness of various social identities, such

as race, gender, disability, and class, which shape people's lived experiences and

create power relations. Sociologist and gerontologist Miranda Corpora (2022, 3) argues

that people “possess multiple marginalized identities simultaneously.” Intersectionality

acknowledges that individuals experience intersecting forms of oppression or privilege.

Corpora discusses intersectionality: She highlights power dynamics in care

relationships, and cultural competency, and points to individual unique challenges and

61
needs. Corpora (2022) writes about Lana, a single black woman in rural South Carolina

without children. Lana experienced a stroke during her visit to her neighbor's place. That

stroke left her unable to speak. Lana was denied her wish to die at home, as only her

neighbor was able to validate that information. Corpora (2022, 1), citing intersectionality

theory, relates this to the “privilege of a good death.” Lana’s social identity as a single

black woman living in a rural area without anyone advocating for her resulted in such

inequities (Corpora 2022). Lana died in her hospital room.

Acting on and in the world is a form of privilege inscribed on the body (Ahmed

2006). Individuals with multiple marginalized identities (like Lana) face unique

challenges and experiences related to end-of-life care. As Ahmed8 (2006, 139)

describes the body as a “stopping device,” she points toward lived experiences and

worlds that unfold for individuals who “fail to inherit whiteness.”

When people share their experiences of disorientation they can help others

develop a relational sensitivity to care, response-ability, changing circumstances and to

the vulnerability that all such entails (becoming-together-with).

Intentional re-orientation

Disorientation in the face of mortality can be overwhelming. One can feel stuck or

suprised. One wonders how to act. Even DCW may compartmentalize (to cultivate a

detached view from) their own mortality to avoid this. Disorientation can limit as well as

benefit individuals’ agency.

When we intentionally re-orient ourselves to death and dying we can become

more attentive, more reflective, we look within and examine our life. We come to

8
Ahmed’s work is inspired by Frantz Fanon’s work “Black Skin, White Masks” (1986).

62
appreciate life “with death left in” (Kastenbaum 1993). This transforms and empowers

us. But we might also risk an increase in death-anxiety.

I observed individual variability in approaching death and dying when I attended

a class at WSU called “Death and Dying.” At the beginning of the semester we

measured our level of death-anxiety using a survey. We measured our level again at the

ending of the semester. For some students, their level of death-anxiety decreased, while

for some students it stayed the same or increased.

All of my interviewees had different opinions about how to face death and dying,

but all in all, they encouraged facing it. For Henry (08/18/2023), preparing for a good

death meant “try to get more conscious.” Interviewee Karmen (she/her) supports this

view by embracing death instead of denying it:

A bad death is one that you deny, that you're in denial of, and that you want
everyone around you to be in denial of as well. And so you don't have the
courage to face it. And then you leave a lot of things. And this is provided that the
person has time, right? [...] Just the denial of your own death doesn't leave you a
lot of time or energy to settle things for yourself and for other people if you have
that opportunity. (10/30/2022)
A denial of death prevents individuals from settling important matters. Mona

emphasizes the importance of actively preparing for death, while one can:

Oh, I think we should all prepare. I think it should be a part of active life, is to
prepare for your own death so that other people don't have to do it afterwards or
in the middle of your death and trying to figure out what you want and what you
didn't want then I think it should be talked about. I think it should be put in place
while you have a sound mind. And surprisingly, a lot of hospice patients have
made those arrangements. Yeah. They've got either a will in place or some sort
of document saying what to do. It may not be official, but it's handwritten, and,
you know, it's their wishes, I guess. And for a lot of people that don't, we use the
five wishes notebook, and it just kind of gives them basic step by step different
scenarios and what they would want to happen if they were to encounter that I
don't have anything written. We talk about it openly at my house, but I don't even
have anything written. We have talked about doing that. We just never have..

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 Because it makes it real. Yeah, it definitely makes it real. Putting it on paper.. you
can't go back once it's written9. (09/08/2023)
Mona’s response is especially interesting, as she points out that she has not

prepared everything for death and dying. But her partner knows what to do when it

comes to Mona’s death. One could wonder if Mona worries about hastening one’s death

by filling out the papers. Or, if her death-adversity is a defense mechanism, keeping her

own death abstract and less concrete than written words do.

Judith believes that preparing for dying fosters independence, aims to eliminate

passivity, and empowers people to make choices for themselves: “Personal autonomy

and patient advocacy really kind of shift the healthcare narrative away from the

traditional paternalistic model to a client-centered model” (09/22/2023).

Our life course moves towards a future that always includes death. To

understand Ahmeds (2006) idea of directions is to see how life follows certain lines as

opposed to other lines. How one faces death and dying depends on the individual.

People have unique needs for how they want their end of life to look. But for all of the

interviewees, this conversation about death and dying, this connection with others was

helpful for decisions about what is valuable in life and death (Wong et. al 2018), and for

enhancing well-being (Neimeyer 2005; Tomer, Eliason, and Wong 2008).

Games and activities for re-orientation

DCW (e.g., EOL doulas; animals; people that have been with dying) provide

companionship, emotional support and can help the dying and the living in states of

disorientation and re-orientation. Card games and other activities like Death Cafes can

stimulate intentional re-orientation.

9
When I attended a death cafe, one end-of-life doula explained that when she helps individuals write out
their advanced directives, she takes the opportunity to renew her advanced directive.

64
 Lori LoCicero and Lisa Pahl created the “Death Deck - A Lively Game of

Surprising Conversations” (launched in 2018) (described as a party game) and “EOL

Deck” (launched in 2023) (for families, caregivers, and healthcare providers). Those are

two card games specifically created to start a conversation about death, dying, and

end-of-life decisions. The games contain questions and scenarios related to various

aspects of dying, including considerations around medical decisions, caregiving, and

personal reflections on one's own mortality. Through play, individuals or groups can

explore and share thoughts, feelings, and perspectives around death. Participants are

encouraged to share their genuine experiences. People can enrich their connection with

life by contemplating mortality (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross 1969). Mortality can be used as a

motivator to live in the moment with gratitude. In other words, death can serve as a

profound instructor about life.

Alternative online events are sound therapy, educational classes, “Host a death

dinner,” the “Conversation Starter,” “Before I Die” Festivals, support groups, and Death

Cafes. Death Cafes are virtual or in-person spaces to talk about death and dying. In a

way expressive of “love of life and respect for death” (subtitle of a Death Cafe name).

Some of the Death Cafes I visited were set up by End-of-Life Doulas. People come

together to discuss death, dying, and related topics in an informal gathering. I attended

virtual Death Cafes in the US regularly. I am amazed by the variety of topics discussed

(e.g., the “epidemic of loneliness,” what are end-of-life doulas, the fear of death, and the

use of psilocybin for end-of-life care).

Death Cafes aim to create a comfortable and open space for individuals to

engage in conversations about mortality, and end-of-life experiences. They are in these

65
ways a community that fosters relations, active participation, and exchanges of

information to explore feelings, perspectives, and fears around death and dying.

The death of a loved one “makes it hard to stay on course” (Ahmed 2006, 19), or

as Leo said:

What makes somebody's death so hard, and what makes the initial grieving
process complicated, is not just the fact that you have lost this human but you
have lost the future with them, and you have lost all your dreams and plans with
them. (9/21/2023)
Inherent in some experiences of death and dying is a hint at a new angle or the

provision of a new point of view. Though disorientation can be integral to the process of

preparing for death and dying, this feeling when shared with others can lead to the

creation of meaningful and authentic relationships, through sharing non-normative

stories, embracing inclusive and diverse perspectives by acknowledging multiple

marginalized identities, and offering new perspectives that transcend conventional

notions of “gendered and sexual limits of belonging” (Zengin 2019, 79).

Natural organic reduction, livable presents

Although death and dying are often discussed from a human-centered view

about human-centered concerns, they are more-than-human affairs. Thinking in “mutual

relations” (Sahlins 2017, 9) (becoming-with) means being attentive to more-than-human

worlds, undoing what humans are used to doing. A case in point is natural organic

reduction (NOR), the process of transforming a deceased person into fertile soil above

ground in a vessel with slight mechanical intervention, also called human composting or

terramation. NOR is an alternative, eco-friendly burial option for dense urban areas,

where space for conservation and natural burials is limited.

66
 Haraway uses string figures (SF) to tell stories about how entities (e.g., plants,

bacteria, machines, humans) become entangled and connected. In the process of NOR,

microorganisms, human-designed systems, machines, dead bodies, staff, and the

environment are string figures. All string figures are engaged and entangled in a

complex web of interactions. This continuous interaction among more-than-human

relationships creates a story of an “art of living together on a damaged planet” (Haraway

2014). The string figures weave stories across species that stay with the trouble of

environmental injustice in death care and mutual relations in death care.

In 2019, Washington State (WA) was the first in the US to legalize NOR. Katrina

Spade (founder of the funeral home Recompose) is the pioneer of NOR. In 2014, Spade

worked on urban death ideas and NOR as part of her master’s thesis. Now, NOR has

already been legalized in seven states.

During my research, I visited two funeral homes that offer NOR, one, Return

Home, in the industrial area of Auburn and the other, Recompose, in Seattle. Both

funeral homes offer online and in-person tours through their facilities for anyone

interested and wanting to understand NOR better: from funeral home directors, to

religious groups, to families. For additional information, both facilities are on social

media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Both NOR facilities are only accessible by car. Recompose can be reached by

bus (which is what I did), but pedestrians have to walk on busy streets without a

sidewalk and cross a loud highway. Zoning regulations, including emission control,

place crematories in industrial parks. Legally, they are in the same category as

crematories, even though they do not have a smokestack and generate less

carbon-intensive emissions. The zoning regulations fail to take into account this

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innovation that NOR represents. The increasing legalization of NOR could pave the way

for future changes in laws and regulations that would fit NOR funeral homes into less

industrial areas.

WA also has several green burial grounds (like White Eagle Memorial Preserve),

cemeteries that allow for natural burials with compostable coffins and without

embalming, a coffin, or a headstone. Green burial grounds have limited space and are

often near urban areas. Proximity can be a decisive factor in the disposition of human

bodies. Lola said:

At this time, I don't feel like there are enough green burial grounds in the area or
nearby. So it would be very far for my body to be transported and for someone to
visit where I am. So, I think that I would like to do natural organic reduction,
which is the composting. [...] I think that I would like to be trimmed to soil and
scattered in my favorite forest. (09/24/2023)

Arriving at Return Home

I was able to schedule a tour of Return Home. The funeral home is located in an

industrial area next to a UPS facility, garbage disposal, and audible rail traffic. A parking

lot and a little bench with a parasol are in front of the gray Return Home building. See

Figure 4.

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 Figure 4: Return Home building.

A man in a light blue-white Hawaiian shirt drank his coffee while on the phone. In

the background, two men dressed all in black are emptying a blue container, with the

help of a forklift, full of soil into the back of a Uhaul truck. One man starts covering up

the soil with a tarp. It is a hot day, and both men have their water bottles within reach

and close to the soil. Pulling down a door behind them, the two guys leave with the

Uhaul truck, followed by a smaller green Return Home car. As I learn later, this was

human compost on its way to the nearby woodlands.

Making it appropriate for humans

A friend and I are the only people visiting Return Home that day for a scheduled

tour. Return Home involves a team of seven people. On the company website, the

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facility is referred to as “the first large scale” NOR facility. It cares for 74 NOR primary

and secondary vessels (used to turn human remains into soil) in the main room. For the

size of the facility, the use of space seemed efficient.

There is a stark contrast between the industrial outside of the funeral home and

the nature-inspired imagery on the walls inside. I am allowed to take pictures in the

main room. When we enter the main floor, big green sliding doors with printed trees lit

up the room, obscuring the gray vessels. See Figure 5.

Figure 5: Sliding doors at Return Home with gray vessels (on the left).

The air system is as loud as sitting next to a fan, but staff can turn it off for

gatherings and ceremonies. My friend describes it as an artificial wind and fantasizes

about it flowing through the printed trees.

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 NOR does not come with a manual. Each facility is unique in its composting

process, unlike the standardized practices of crematories. There is a difference between

making compost from human remains and making compost from animals. Micah

Truman, founder of Return Home, became part of the NOR movement in 2018. Truman

contacted an animal mortality composter, a profession that composts deceased animals

by using fecal matter from other animals and, in return, renders fertile soil.

The question is, if one can compost animals, how can one compost people?

People decide who and what is (made) killable10 (Haraway 2008, 80-82) by showing

more reverence and respect towards a human body than a farm animal. Humans decide

that some lives are killable (removing moral obstacles to make them not grievable), and

some are not killable. When talking about lives, I mean microorganisms (viruses,

bacteria); plants; animals; ecosystems; and other humans. Tourguide Stacey (he/him)

summed up a human idea of killability: “We love the people that we love, and that's

usually going to be more so than Ziggy the piggy that you're going to be butchering in a

couple of months anyways.” Voicing an even more sensitive view, interviewee Nora

(she/her) pointed out that material from an earlier Return Home composting experiment

on pigs in British Columbia is now used on the plants inside the Return Home building,

thereby “making the plants really happy and beautiful.”

For two and a half years, Return Home had to redo the technology behind

animal-mortality-composting and figure out how to do it in a way that was more

appropriate for a human: gentle, passive, and slow-moving.

10
Haraway's (2008, 38) idea of “killability” emphasizes that some lives are more susceptible to being
subjected to harm, violence, or neglect than others. Determining who is deemed killable, one has to
perform a “god trick from above,” transitioning life into bereft of life (Haraway 2016, 42; see also Haraway
1988). Haraway’s concept of killability is situated within ethical considerations, biopolitical frameworks,
and caring for more-than-human beings. Humans are response-able for the conditions determining which
lives are more vulnerable (Haraway 2008; 2016). People try to justify or take into consideration why
specific lives are more privileged or vulnerable over others, but, as Haraway puts it, “there will never be
sufficient reason" (2008, 81).

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 Microbes-technology-human entanglement

Microbes achieve NOR, while humans and machines act as allies in the effort.

Occasional human-machine rotation speeds up the active microbes. NOR operators

(the men in the black shirts from the opening story) drive the forklift to rotate the

composting vessels.

Return Home uses two different vessels: primary and secondary vessels. A dead

body stays in a primary vessel for four to six weeks. During this time, Return Home

offers laying ceremonies and a space for people to visit and perform their rituals. See

Figure 6.

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 Figure 6: Picture of the inside of a primary vessel after a laying ceremony.

We step into one big room with lofty green trees printed on sliding screens that

extend from high ceiling to a floor that obscures the 74 primary vessels, as Stacey

pointed out, to make it less Costco-esque. The screens allow mourners to visit just their

vessel instead of all 74. There is one smaller demonstration vessel (Figure 7, see

Figure 13 for the inside of the vessel).

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 Figure 7: Demonstration vessel with artificial flowers, and chairs for the living.

The full-size primary vessels measure eight feet by three and a half feet by three

and a half feet, a fit for the majority of the population.

Employees place a mixture of three organics, alfalfa, straw, and sawdust, and

place it at the bottom of the vessel. Then, they take an individual, bathed and dressed in

a compostable gown, and place the person on top of the layer of organics. When the

family comes in to see their person, spend time with them, or put things inside of the

vessel, there is an opportunity for them to place the remaining organics over the body.

The ratio of organic material to body weight is three to one.

For the next four to six weeks, a computer system, closely observed by staff,

monitors the temperature, airflow, and moisture content inside the vessel. After about

four to six weeks, the temperature and the energy inside the vessel begin to drop. This

drop means the microbes have less energy to break down and consume the body. At

that point, most of the body has broken down into soil. Employees remove the vessel

and place it on an external rotator that will gently rotate it (with the least frequency

needed) to redistribute the energy inside. Nora said: “It kind of opens up like a praying

Mantis's arms, and then it closes over the top and the sides, and then it just rotates it

slowly just like that.” The vessel will be stacked up again for a couple more days. The

temperature will then spike again to about 150-160 degrees Fahrenheit. When the

temperature drops again, the first half of NOR is as good as completed.

Then, the vessel goes through an external screening, as in crematory

processing, to remove anything inorganic and to break down any remaining bones. To

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do the screening process, one must have a license, for which the training is the same

as for running a crematory.

Human bodies are full of installed devices - pacemakers, hip implants, spinal

rods, screws, staples. Metals and plastics do not break down; staff removes them from

the NOR process. An employee goes through the soil and picks out everything

inorganic. State law says the compost must be wholly uniform and without identifiable

bones. Any remaining bones are mechanically broken down by a cremulator and

reintroduced into the soil to give the microbes access to the porous, spongy interior of

the bone.

After external screening, the soil goes into a smaller secondary vessel, which

looks like a large blue rain barrel. The smaller secondary vessel allows Return Home to

have more space for gatherings. Stacey mentioned a Southern Baptist service for 200

people at Return Home. The soil sits and cures for the last four weeks before it is ready

for distribution.

Washington State Department of Licensing and the Board of Health have

particular regulations and laws for testing compost. NOR funeral homes are required to

test 20 final product samples to a third party laboratory. After this is completed, 25% of

the total monthly output of NOR, must be tested, until 60 final samples are reached (80

samples in total) (Figure 8).

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 Figure 8: Schema of initial testing requirements for NOR.

Return Home is required to test soil if a family requests it or to fulfill the state's

requirements. Inspectors look for bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella. Return Home has

tested compost at different times during the NOR process. When the compost has

dried, there is little risk of pathogens. It is entirely nutrient-dense and ready to be placed

on living organisms. The only exceptions are certain diseases: Prion-related diseases

(e.g., Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease), Ebola, and active tuberculosis, pathogens that would

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survive the process and live in the compost11. Heavy metals, including mercury, arsenic,

and lead, are also assayed. Such testing, done by a third party, is a large expenditure

for Return Home.

The end result of the NOR process is about 250 pounds of soil, about one cubic

yard. See Figure 9.

Figure 9: Soil of one human in burlap bags (in the front), with smaller burlap bags (in the
back).

11
There is a potential concern that in the process of NOR infectious diseases are released or survive the
process, but the topic “has not been well studied” yet (O’Keeffe 2023).

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 The staff places the soil into biodegradable burlap bags. If a person puts the bag

directly into the ground, the degrading burlap will break down. The burlap allows the soil

to continue to live and breathe. However, soil zip tied into plastic bags will suffocate,

and the life cycle will end.

Each bag of soil comes with an instruction on how to handle it (Figure 10).

Figure 10: Composting instructions (postcard size).

The bags vary in size depending on how much soil family members and friends

want. They might go out to their properties, to favorite locations where they had a picnic,

might use the soil, as Stacey mentioned, to plant trees in their backyard, or 1500 trees

over a salmon creek, or memorial gardens, or scattered at Mount Rainier. Families and

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friends can donate extra soil to a Return Home woodland property (Figure 10), about

10-15 minutes from the funeral home.

Figure 11: Woodland area with two people walking along an asphalt path.

NOR at Return Home costs $4,950 without a ceremony and is comparable to

other death care options. Additional costs can be $500 for a laying-in ceremony and

$800 for a ceremony at the home of the dead (including body preparation and cool

pads).

Return Home - Aesthetics

As one enters the building, one sees a little map on a wall that shows all the

places Return Home has served (Figure 12).

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 Figure 12: Map of places, marked with a pin, that Return Home has served.

About 70% of their customers come to Return Home to spend time with their

loved ones, bathe and dress them, place them into the vessel, have ceremonies,

decorate the vessel, and place items of remembrance inside the vessel. There is much

more family involvement in the NOR process in the Seattle area than anything the

funeral directors from Return Home have seen in almost 50 years of the more traditional

funeral business. Stacey, talking about his experience in the funeral business, explained

that cremation is connected to fewer services, fewer visitations, and less family

involvement. It is a quick process: the cremation gets done, the ashes are returned, and

off the people go with little room for ceremony. Being in the greater Seattle area, the

Return Home team expected that they would be subject to that same approach: families

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come, give Return Home their loved ones, and two to two and a half months later the

loved one is returned to the family and friends as soil. That was the expectation, but it

turned out not to be that simple.

Return Home had to make many changes for their customers to create an

environment that was a lot more comfortable for them. It was gratifying to Return Home

that attempts at humanization engaged grievers who thereby felt closer to their loved

ones. For example, when we enter Return Home, our tour guide offers coffee, water,

soda, and snacks. It does not feel like a funeral home. Nature images hang on the

walls. There are some decorative plants and a big wooden table in the middle of the

arrival room. The impression for those walking through before entering the main floor

with the vessels is that of a casual lounge.

Only the NOR operators, the people who handle the direct production of the soil,

dress in black, and wear seasonal uniforms. In their more casual dress, the rest of the

staff depart from the stock image of a funeral director dressed in formal black and, as

Stacey intimated, kind of creepy-looking. Stacey, in his Hawaiian shirt, looked ready to

go to Hawaii. In his view, families do not always want the clean-cut, business look.

On the main floor are pictures on the wall, which show Micah (the founder) in

representative costumes of the states that have legalized NOR. For example, Micah

dressed up as the Statue of Liberty when New York legalized NOR or Elvis when

Nevada legalized NOR. Two other pictures show people placing things into a vessel

with their loved ones. Another shows a family-style reception, with brought-in food and

catering, at Return Home. Around the corner is a forest mural with a riverbed and

lavender flowers.

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 Next to the gray show vessel stand chairs in different colors and designs. In the

vessel is one white compostable gown with a little note and plastic flowers placed in it.

See Figure 13.

Figure 13: Non-woven compostable gown at Return Home.

Each dead person is dressed in a non-woven compostable gown handmade by

an employee. Stacey mentioned one family from Indiana tie-dyed the gown for their

person.

Return Home invites people to decorate the vessel of their deceased person with

letters, photographs, seahawks, flags, and crystals. When people come by to visit the

vessel after the placement of the body, they pull up a chair (crack open a beer or a

coffee), see their loved one's vessel - which they decorated - and know which one it is.

Stacey pointed out people might come by as little as once or twice during the process or

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as much as four or five times weekly. Return Home organizes events for the grieving,

such as a one-year remembrance ceremony.

Our tour guide explains that sound plays an important role. Stacey expounds that

if you work every day with dead bodies that lie and disappear in a metallic utilitarian

vessel, you can become too detached from the reality of a dead individual and fail to

pay due respect and attention. A gong (Figure 14) and a drum (Figure 15), forms of

ghostly engagements (Langford 2016), are intentional, dramatic reminders. The staff

interrupts their routine by tapping the gong and saying the dead person's name to

consciously remind themselves of the individual behind the dead body, thereby

“reestablish[ing] a sense of meaning that threatens to come undone” (LeBreton 2017,

81). In a hesitant way I ask to hit the gong. As I say Jeannette's name, I feel immersed

in the vibrations of the gong. It is a beautiful moment. The sound of the gong cancels

out all the other noises, redirecting attention to the now, Jeannette’s name, and her

death. Sound can hold a space for the dead.

The mourners can also use the gong and a drum or a combination of both.

Stacey explains the drum is a gift from a native family. The creator of the drum pointed

out that everything was perfect for a funeral at Return Home, but the gong (for him, a

rather Eastern concept) was not in keeping with the traditions of his culture and living

cosmology (see Stoller 1984 for more on living cosmology). He donated the drum to

Return Home in the name of his beloved one.

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 Figure 14: Gong at Return Home.

On the rawhide, the natural and coincidental light shading in the distinct image of

a large butterfly (Figure 15) is this artifact's most startling and peculiar feature. (For me,

it calls to mind the concept of Jungian synchronicity.) The drum hangs on a wall with a

little plaque beneath honoring the beloved one.

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 Figure 15: Gifted painted drum at Return Home.

Visiting Recompose - Aesthetics

Failing to secure an appointment, I (and a friend) decide to make an informal visit

to Recompose. The locked Recompose building is covered in murals of leaves,

mushrooms, and plants. The murals (Figure 16) create an interesting, humanizing

contrast to the other plain factory buildings (Figure 17).

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 Figure 16: Murals at Recompose building.

Figure 17: Neighborhood around Recompose.

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 To describe the aesthetics of Recompose, I use secondary data such as the

Recompose instagram and facebook account, Ask a Mortician Youtube-channel by

mortician Caitlin Doughty, and demonstration photos from the Recompose website.

Behind the wooden counter in the broad check-in lobby looms a green moss wall (Our

location October 15, 2023).

Recompose has two different ceremony rooms: a “formal gathering room” and a

“cedar room.” In the bigger formal room, is a “threshold vessel.” During a laying-in

ceremony, the shrouded body lies on what they call a cradle, a device for smoothly

placing the body in the vessel, “representing a moment of transition” (Our Location

October 15, 2023). Incorporating sound, the favorite playlist of the deceased can be

played during such a ceremony (Let's Visit the Human Composting Facility! October 15,

2023).

The “threshold vessel” enters the “greenhouse” (a euphemism for the industrial

back area of the facility) through a heavy round door. In the greenhouse, the body

enters a bee hive construction (made of white steel vessels) that looks like something

out of a futuristic science-fiction movie, or as Spade describes it, a “spaceship” (Let's

Visit the Human Composting Facility! October 15, 2023). To lessen the fear of being

alive when claimed dead, Spade (Let's Visit the Human Composting Facility! October

15, 2023) says, for one, a person could signal from inside of the metal vessel to be let

out, and also, being encased by “woodchips, alfalfa, straw, and fresh air” provides

warmth. The process of NOR will only start if the person is dead (Let's Visit the Human

Composting Facility! October 15, 2023).

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 The cedar room is a smaller room. As seen on a picture on the Recompose

website, a prop of a shrouded body lies on a table. The room is for people who want a

more intimate or hands-on experience with their persons and provides tools for washing

or shrouding a person. There are brushes to comb a person's hair and oils for

anointment.

Recompose has land-partners for conservation work - such as Vashon Island

and a land-partner in southern WA outside Battle Ground at Bell Mountain, near

Portland. As Elliot Rasnick (Let's Visit the Human Composting Facility! October 15,

2023), founder of a non-profit restoration project at Bell Mountain, says, becoming soil

“you’re not a tree, you’re a forest” - a way of making new kin. Sometimes, Doughty

(Let's Visit the Human Composting Facility! October 15, 2023) says, by the time the staff

take out the soil, “mushrooms have grown from it,” a case in point for the resilience and

adaptability of the mushroom as a life form (Tsing 2015).

As stated on their website, NOR at Recompose costs $7,000 without a ceremony

and is comparable to other death care options (Our pricing October 15, 2023).

Additional costs can be: $350 per hour for the gathering room, charged by the half hour

after the first hour, and providing space for 25 people in-person (and unlimited online)

(Our pricing October 15, 2023). The price is $200 per hour for the cedar room, charged

by the half hour after the first hour, providing space for five people in-person (Our

pricing October 15, 2023).

A comparison

Both facilities are similar in using natural imagery (e.g., green pictures of nature

on the wall, the moss wall) to create a striking contrast with the industrial surroundings.

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Recompose and Return Home strive to address the different sensibilities of religions

and cultures. From my understanding, both NOR processes are almost the same. Both

funeral homes are transparent in pricing, but Return Home offers a veteran discount

and free NOR for children under 17 years. Last year, as a mission statement, Return

Home offered free NOR for people who took their own lives. Lola compared

“Recompose to a boutique, whereas Return Home is more rustic.” The vessels of both

facilities performed the same function but were quite different in appearance. While the

tone of our guide at Return Home was gentle but frank, the Recompose language was

somewhat more euphemistic.

Return Home has one big room for all the vessels, which makes it easy for

visitors to navigate and orient themselves in this new environment. I found comfort in

knowing that all the dead bodies were in this room together, and that I was not the only

one who had lost a loved one. I was allowed to stand close to the staked burlap bags

(Figure 9) “that hold the DNA” (Alexander 2015) of dead strangers turned into soil. This

physical proximity, the simplicity of one big room, and the comfortable presence of all

the other vessels (partially hidden between the tree-covered sliding doors), restored in

me a connection, a sense of being part of the circle of life.

Recompose plays with visually striking design elements by incorporating

see-through green plexiglas for viewing the vessels in the greenhouse. The plexiglas is

a unique and visually engaging experience, but at the same time it creates a barrier or

distance between the griever and the dead.

The dead, while in separate vessels, are also connected with each other through

the honeycomb-frame around the vessels.

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 Both facilities cater to different preferences and sensual experiences in the

grieving process.

More-than-human communities

After death, “benign and dangerous symbionts” (microbes) will continue to

interact with the dead body, use it as a resource, and break it down (Haraway and

Goodeve 2019, 339). They live to do this, or as environmental journalist Mark Harris

(2007, 36) put it: “No matter how it’s sealed inside a coffin, a corpse, even an embalmed

one, will eventually decompose.”

In NOR, microorganisms, humans, machines, and plants are becoming-with each

other. The interaction between microorganisms, humans, and machines represents

symmetrical participation (Haraway 2008, 262), as all are integral to the process of

NOR. The SF of death care is beyond the human realm. Agency, then, is contextual, a

web threaded by microorganisms, plants, humans, environments, and machines. The

example of NOR challenges the idea of a bounded, fixed, and isolated self through

symbiotic relationships (Haraway 2008). “To be connected is to become whole” (Smith

2012, 149); NOR creates a connection between land, humans, microorganisms,

machines, and many more-than-human beings. NOR “enlivens devastated spaces”

(Kirksey 2014, 149) by returning fertile soil to nature12 and taking action through

regeneration.

NOR is a sympoietic practice: Beth Dempster (1998) suggested the term

sympoiesis as a heuristic to interpret ecosystems. Sympoetic systems are

12
The soil is so rich in nutrients that the return of it to the ecosystems requires a structured and carefully
planned approach - to minimize harmful disruptions and maximize beneficial effects for sensitive
ecosystems.

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 collectively-producing systems that do not have self-defined spatial or temporal
boundaries. Information and control are distributed among components. The
systems are evolutionary and have the potential for surprising change (Dempster
1998, 31).
NOR does not have rigid spatial or temporal boundaries. NOR (between

machines, microorganisms, and more) is an collective ongoing and flexible process that

interconnects with ecosystems for environmental sustainability. NOR is an eco-friendly

sympoetic solution for urban places. When I asked the interviewee Oceana (they/them)

about their legacy, they said they wanted to leave nothing behind, so they wanted to be

composted. The NOR process changes how people memorialize their dead. The

interviewee Lola described a plant planted in human soil as a “living urn.” NOR shows

people possibilities for after death, and for their taking the present seriously in order to

act responsibly. By cultivating care across time, NOR practices bring environmental

ghosts and the attention they call to ecological crises to the present and future.

NOR also faces skepticism in areas where it may be less familiar. For example,

interviewee Annette imagined shared graves and was unaware that loved ones were

entitled to the composted soil. Continuing education and promoting awareness about

these practices will make the public more aware of options that are often not

considered.

Elliot Rasnick (Let's Visit the Human Composting Facility! October 15, 2023)

points out how the acronym of NOR emphasizes the idea that a person becomes soil

that is “neither distinctly human nor inhuman. This idea raises objections to NOR based

on religious faith. One prominent example comes from the Catholic church, where NOR

is viewed as improper. As one bishop said, it is “disconcerting ... there is nothing

distinguishably left of the body to be placed in a casket or an urn and laid to rest in a

sacred place” (Conference of Catholic Bishops 2023, 11). The bishop’s remarks

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highlight a tension between Catholic beliefs, that views the intact corporeal as sacred,

and new emerging death practices, that dissolve/change/transform the corporeal. It is

important to note that this statement does not reflect all Catholic church members

beliefs.

NOR stays with the trouble. In its process of addressing mutual relations and

considerations of becoming-with, NOR is an SF of a possible present for living on a

damaged planet, and a re-negotiation with nature. The ability of a mushroom to grow in

a dark NOR vessel, and the process of NOR itself, celebrate the regenerative power of

nature and becoming-with many.

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 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION

In this thesis, I looked into how DCW drew from their own experiences to

(re)orient themselves in their encounters with loss and grief. Specifically, I examined

how their sensory experiences contributed to this (re)orientation and to their

understanding of death, dying, and ongoing cultural construction of self, identity, and

meaning.

Findings

Finding a - Relationality as re-orientation

I was able to show how death and dying are highly relational experiences. We

are far more entangled than it seems - we are interdependent critters. The concepts of

becoming-with (Haraway 2008), subjectivity as a shared process of meaning making

(Ozawa-de Silva 2021), co-poiesis (Desjarlais 2018) and sympoiesis (Dempster 1998)

are practices of re-orientation (Ahmed 2006). Coming from different researchers, these

concepts emphasize the relational nature of self contributing to re-orientation in the face

of death, dying, and grief. How we become-with affects the nature of how we embody

grief. Furthermore, intentional re-orientation can help us not only to prepare for the

end-of-life but also to root us in the now.

To become-with collapses dualisms and challenges simplified boundaries

between self/others, dead/living and nature/culture. The interconnectedness of

sustainable relationships opens up worlds to world, stories to story, and thoughts to

think (Haraway 2016). Critical imagination in becoming-with invites us to rethink ethical

and sustainable connections, helps us to collaborate in resisting injustices (staying with

the trouble) and to act in such a way as to promote the health of the planet.

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 Finding b - Heuristics of SF (for response-ability and staying with the trouble)

How we die, shows how we understand the world, or as interviewee Mona put it:

“the way we die often is similar to how we lived” (09/26/2023). An SF point of view

fosters responsible and sustainable relationships in living, dying and death. In the face

of environmental destruction, it becomes imperative to focus on understanding the

interconnectedness of death and dying by attending to shared response-abilities. New

perspectives on deathcare benefit our fellow critters (more-than-human beings). Staying

with the trouble with SF invokes the appearance of environmental ghosts through

stories and practices that disturb and confront. By staying with the trouble we challenge

power relationships inherent in societal scripts, compulsory heterosexuality and racism.

Thus we re-orient ourselves to reclaim our authentic response to death, dying, and

end-of-life choices.

Finding c - Sensory awareness for re-orientation

Sensory experiences contribute to (re)orientation (Ahmed 2006) in DCWs’

encounters with death and dying. When we touch, feel, smell, see, our dead loved one,

or drink a coffee in their presence, then our attention becomes an authentic expression

of our love. Creating sensory-rich experiences in death care (and in a way becoming

sensory aware) can make for meaning and connection.

Doing sensory ethnography and lossography deepens our understanding of how

we relate to and learn about the world and ourselves through our senses. This

becoming-with, this creation of counternarratives (re-making worlds) re-orientes us in

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such a way that we can more response-ably and fully empathize with marginalized lives

and experiences.

Limitations

In the historical overview of death, dying, and end-of-life choices I only summarily

addressed marginalized, gendered, religious, activist, and spiritual considerations. This

section would benefit from a more comprehensive approach to explore the complex

topic of death and dying in the US, and its diverse communities and death practices.

I only scratched the surface of death practices in Washington State and given the

scope and deadlines of a master’s thesis, I had to focus on my key findings. For

example, I participated in “grave digging” and learned about hand-woven “soul boats”

(to transport a dead body or to bury the dead in) at a conservation burial ground at

White Eagle Memorial Preserve, a valuable experience. This organized work party (that

is how they call it at the Ranch) was too close to the deadline of this thesis to

incorporate it.

Future directions

In the future, for my PhD, I want to continue to think-with multisensory

anthropology, but also multimodal anthropology (see also anthropologists Eben

Kirksey’s (2014) edited volume “Multispecies Salon,” Undocumented Migration Project’s

(2023) participation-exhibition “Hostile Terrain 94” raising awareness for undocumented

deaths in the US-Mexico borderlands, and artist and anthropologist Karolina Żyniewicz

art projects in the exhibition “Membranes Out of Order” (2022)): For one, I want to

create a board game about death and dying, hoping by this device to provide a

95
conversational space and to assist individuals in (re)orienting themselves around dying,

death practices and end-of-life choices.

Second, I want to explore in a deeper way the practices of becoming-with in

death and dying in the US. I want to explore the co-poietic alternative states of

consciousness (such as dreams and visions) and further focus on the sensory, such as

including soundscapes, photography-led interviews, and the interaction of touch, written

stories, and vision through the design of a board game.

96
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