On Disrupted Death Rites and COVID-19

To publish a collection that documents lived experiences of death and ritual around the globe is, at any point in time, a tricky task. The challenge rises immensely in the midst of the disruptions caused by a global pandemic. If COVID-19 can be understood as a global storm that is still raging, then individuals, communities and publics, and indeed entire nations face storm fronts of different frequency, intensity, and severity at different times. No universal picture is possible. Readers of this collection next week, next year or next decade will likely identify very different themes or arguments of import. For example, at the time of writing (late 2023), we in Australia are said to be in a period of “COVID normal,” with relatively few public health restrictions in place, while at the same time experiencing a “new wave” of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. “COVID normality” in this case ironically is declared at a time when the reported cases of new strains of COVID, and COVID-related deaths are higher than they have ever been. And yet, much popular media coverage has moved on to other current events and cruel killers: the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, monkeypox, and mass shootings in the USA. Similarly, at least in Australia, very few members of the public are wearing the recommended masks in crowded spaces, or taking up additional vaccine boosters. This phenomenon is not limited to Australia: a New York Times headline, “As Sixth Covid Wave Hits, Many New Yorkers Shrug It Off” (July 12, 2022) suggests that many have been “meeting the moment with more of a ‘meh.’” But at the very same time, entire cities in mainland China have at times been placed into strict lockdown with the goal of controlling the spread of just a few hundred cases in pursuit of “COVID zero:” a goal once shared by Australia (if not the USA). Such asynchronous experiences demonstrate how waves of COVID-19 are created not only from infection numbers or variants, but also people’s shifting emotional and social reactions, which are equally diverse around the globe (see Berthod et al., Europe, this collection).

It was in the first stages of the global pandemic that we decided to convene a series of online meetings for scholars from around the world working on death and dying in the context of COVID-19. Between late 2020 to mid 2021, a core group of anthropologists located in nearly every continent met monthly on Zoom: some joining after their workday with wine in hand, others participating in the wee hours of their morning. These meetings became a site of camaraderie, a chance to share fieldwork stories, strategize on methods to use when investigating local experiences of a pandemic, and to reflect on the emotional impacts of our work. The conversations highlighted the diverse and uneven effects of COVID-19, but also generated shared theoretical lines of questioning: What elements of funerary rituals are considered more critical or essential to retain or reproduce during a pandemic? What makes a new or modified funeral rite meaningful or efficacious? Who decides this, and what happens when people disagree? On the omnipresent theme of technology, several researchers in this collection reflected on their strange “disconnected” experiences of attending funerals streamed on Zoom or YouTube, as well as how these forms of mediation appeared to transform the rite for participants. Others spoke of the ever-troubling presence of the dead body and challenging fieldwork with those who care for the dead (see Bank, this issue, on South Africa).

This special collection of articles came out of these interactive comparative discussions but then each article takes us deep into particular, located experiences at the heart of the global pandemic’s spread, before the development and widespread availability of vaccines (which we note still remain inaccessible to many at the time of writing). They reflect a period when infectious disease protocols for the treatment of the living and dead shifted frequently in tandem with emerging scientific knowledge of the pathogen. Indeed it was, we believe, one of the...