Doctoral Dissertation Research: Processes of State Administration in Caring for the Isolated Deceased

Princeton University, Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

The research funded by this award will investigate a little studied aspect of contemporary urban life: what happens when people die anonymously. Individuals once died in multigenerational homes; deaths were mourned by extended family networks and funerary rituals were observed by kin, friends, and neighbors. Anthropologists have documented such funerary systems all over the world and have found that their variability provides one lens through which to understand the variability of the different societies and cultures. This project asks, how is death treated differently now that families are smaller and geographically dispersed? What happens to the dead when more people are living alone and in cities? Do funerary rituals change and what do these changes tell us about shifts in kinship and social relations? When the state intervenes in this highly intimate sphere, caring for the body, property, and memory of the dead, does this signal a simple extension of state authority or a major shift in the role of the state bureaucracy? This research is important because it will contribute to understanding the wide-ranging implications of the global trend to urban living. The project will document and analyze the role of the state and its network of contractors in laying to rest the isolated dead in an American city. Princeton University anthropology doctoral candidate Sofia Pinedo-Padoch, under the supervision of Dr. Carol Greenhouse, will carry out the research at the Public Administrator's office in New York City. The Public Administrator is a city agency that intervenes when an individual dies without a will, family, or other heirs. It is the agency's job to ensure a decedent's body is laid to rest, and to attend to the distribution and liquidation of any property and assets. Ms. Pinedo-Padoch will conduct participant observation research at the Public Administrator's office, as well as within the network of public and private contractors that assist the agency. She will also carry out archival research and interviews to trace a sample of cases of individual deaths from beginning to end, documenting the full process of state activity and the individuals who become subject to it. The research will produce a comprehensive portrait of the state's increasingly frequent work as caretaker for the dead, illuminating what death looks like in a changed, contemporary urban world, and what that reveals about social and cultural life today.