The social agency of dead bodies

Abstract

This article promotes Alfred Gell's theory of agency (1998) as an important framework that can be used to inform research in the field of Death Studies. Gell argues that agency can be abducted from objects via relationships between four ‘terms’ (indexes, artists, recipients and prototypes) and that these relationships can take multiple forms depending on which of the terms is positioned as ‘agent’ and which is positioned as ‘patient’. These relationships can be further understood in light of Gell's concept of intentional psychology, as will be discussed below. In order to explicate the value of Gell's theoretical model, I will employ it in an analysis of ethnographic fieldwork data, collected in a funeral home in the United States and a funeral directors' in England, that examine viewing practices of the recently dead between the moments of death and of final disposal. In so doing, I will argue that Gell's theoretical model provides a valuable framework for understanding the relationship between the living and the dead, particularly when it is mediated by the visible dead body.