Bjerregaard Peter - Materialities of passing : explorations in transformation, transition and transience

Series Editors: Rane Willerslev and Dorthe Refslund Christensen, Aarhus University, Denmark

Eventually we all die and we experience death head-on, when someone close to us dies. This series, Studies in Death, Materiality and the Origin of Time, identifies this fact as constitutive of the origin of human conceptions of time. Time permeates everything, but except for time itself all things are perishable yet, it is only through the perishable world of things and bodies that we sense time. Bringing together scholarly work across a range of disciplines, the series explores the fact that human experiences and conceptions of time inherently hinge on the material world, and that time as a socially experienced phenomenon cannot be understood as separate from material form or expression. As such, it departs from a persistent current within Western thinking. Philosophy, biology and physics, among other disciplines, have studied time as an essential, ethereal and abstract concept. In the same way, death has often been conceived of in abstract and sometimes transcendental terms as occupying one extreme margin of human life. As an alternative, this series examines the ways in which bodily death and material decay are central points of reference in social life, which offer key insights into human perceptions of time.

Also in this series

Suicide and Agency
Anthropological Perspectives on Self-Destruction, Personhood, and Power
Edited by Ludek Broz and Daniel Mnster
ISBN 978-1-4724-5791-2

Mediating and Remediating Death
Edited by Dorthe Refslund Christensen and Kjetil Sandvik
ISBN 978-1-4724-1303-1

Taming Time, Timing Death
Social Technologies and Ritual
Edited by Dorthe Refslund Christensen and Rane Willerslev
ISBN 978-1-4094-5068-9

Materialities of Passing

Explorations in Transformation,
Transition and Transience

Edited by

PETER BJERREGAARD

University of Oslo, Norway

ANDERS EMIL RASMUSSEN

Moesgaard Museum, Denmark

TIM FLOHR SRENSEN

University of Copenhagen, Denmark

First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2016 selection and editorial matter, Peter Bjerregaard, Anders Emil Rasmussen and Tim Flohr Srensen; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Peter Bjerregaard, Anders Emil Rasmussen and Tim Flohr Srensen to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Materialities of passing : explorations in transformation, transition and transience /[edited] by Peter Bjerregaard, Anders Emil Rasmussen and Tim Flohr Srensen.

pages cm. (Studies in death, materiality and the origin of time)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4724-4197-3 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-4724-4198-0 (ebook) ISBN 978-1-4724-4199-7 (epub) 1. DeathCross-cultural studies. 2. Material culture. 3. Thanatology. I. Bjerregaard, Peter, editor. II. Rasmussen, Anders Emil, editor. III. Srensen, Tim Flohr, editor.

GN485.5.M38 2016

306.9dc23

2015028321

ISBN: 9781472441973 (hbk)

ISBN: 9781315594309 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC