The Social Construction of Death. Pastoral power, death concept, and normativity in the hungarian peasant culture

Berta, Péter (2004) The Social Construction of Death. Pastoral power, death concept, and normativity in the hungarian peasant culture. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 49 (1-2). pp. 101-124. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

A number of recent anthropological studies focus on the contribution of beliefs and rites connected with death to the reproduction and legitimization of this-worldly social and moral order. The present paper conceptualizes some observations concerning the this-worldly normative character of Hungarian peasant death concept, with special attention to the relations between Christian “pastoral power” (Foucault 1988, 1994) and normativity. The author attempts to demonstrate first of all that the this-worldly normative character of peasant death concept is on the one hand a product, and on the other a tool of Christian pastoral power. More accurately, he tries to define how this kind of power makes death a part of its own ideological basis through the construction, distribution and control of Christian knowledge about death, and how it tries to (re)legitimize and maintain its this-worldly influence through, among others, this knowledge.

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