Death or (just) dying? Philosophical - anthropological conversations about the interpretations of the experience of death

Abstract

In the article, we deal with death as a universal problem of human existence, which nevertheless experiences certain transformations over time, since it depends partly on the specific historical and social context. We talked about death with people who no longer practice traditional posthumous customs and whose religious belief does not affect attitudes towards death, i.e. with people who have a ?mundane?, skeptical attitude towards death. The co-author talked with her informants from Croatia about the meaning and impact of the deaths of those close to them on themselves, but also the presence of death in their daily lives. In the article, we describe the notions, roles, and meaning that death has in their lives. Our anthropological orientation updated with this research is close to the thinking of Tim Ingold, who, wondering about the purpose of anthropological research, defined anthropology as philosophizing in the world and with people.