From Laying Out to Embalming: Looking After Bodies after Death
Type de matériel :
38
Up to 1975-1980, preparation of dead bodies was the task of the local layer outer helped by a few women. The symbolic value of the last preparation of the body is very strong because it is a rite of accession of the defunct to eternal life. Gradually, because of the medicalisation of disease then death, the layer outer is replaced by an embalmer, specialist in conservation care, who intervenes not only around the body but in the body. Now it is the task of a paid professional who is authorised to practise after training. The sense of this preparation is then reversed: it is a final “re-presentation”, even sometimes of an exit. Laying out and “thanatopractice” question the frontiers of care and the meaning of “taking care” of the other at the moment of death.
Réseaux sociaux