Life, Death and Ambiguity in the Social Dynamics of Inner Naples

Abstract

Death and mortuary practices in inner Naples are characterised by beliefs and activities related to problematic relationships between body and soul, and between this world and the other world. Death is seen as a process, a transition. This allows some softening of its meaning of social and psychological laceration and allows room for domains of ambiguity, negotiation and mediation which are crucial in the body and soul and in this world/the other world relationships as well as in local thought and practical life. Negotiation, mediation and ambiguity enhance flexibility in Neapolitans' ability to cope with the problems of ordinary life, and provide people with a frame of meanings to explain and control what is otherwise inexplicable and uncontrollable. Most of the people living in inner Naples have included the dead in coping with daily problems of existence and understanding its obscurities. Central in this philosophy is an elaborate representation of the supramundane which is strongly connected with a given idea of death. Death itself is seen as a public issue rather than a strictly private matter. It is never a hic et nunc event; it is rather a process, a transition from one clearly defined 'this worldly' state to a variety of positions in the hereafter.1 Such transition concerns both the body and the soul and is effected through complex mortuary practices. This is based on the belief that the living can, by their rites, influence the position of the dead, who are, in turn, perceived as having power in life. Similar mortuary rituals and connected symbols have been reported in rural south Italy and Europe. There is little suggestion, however, that they occur in other European urban settings. Yet, evolutionary prejudices apart, the Western urban character of the inner-city case does not preclude but indeed stimulates comparison. The ethnography presented here also suggests that in Catholic Europe a more complex relationship exists between body and soul than is generally assumed. Significantly, it is flexible negotiation rather than sharp opposition between this world and the other world which corresponds to this relationship.2 This article takes a case study from inner-city Naples to explore these questions. It is based on field research that I carried out in an inner-city area of Naples in 1978-80 and in successive visits. Drawing on this ethnographic material on death and on the relationships between body and soul and between this world and the hereafter, the article discusses the role of mediation, negotiation and ambiguity within the local philosophy and the