HW 48 - Family Perspectives on the Care of the Dead

Please interview two or more older members of your family regarding their beliefs and practices around the care of the dead. Write up a succinct summary including a few particularly interesting quotes from the interviews and then add one to three paragraphs of analysis.

For interview questions you could recycle some of the ones you used in interviewing your peers. You could also make it more personal by asking specific questions about family members who have died. (In that decision, as in all related decisions in these assignments, I encourage you to carefully consider politeness, privacy, the importance of sharing insights, your respondents´ feelings, etc.) You could ask them to articulate how their beliefs connect to their practices (and vice-versa). For instance, if they tend to have church funerals, how does that connect to their religious beliefs? What do they see as strengths and problems with the dominant models?

For analysis you could compare and contrast what the family members say with dominant social practices in the U.S., with each other, with what you and your peers say, etc. You could attempt to figure out underlying beliefs and practices that influence how your family orients itself in the midst of death. You could attempt to think through the contradictions and congruities in how your family deals with these issues. For instance, what functions should care of the dead serve, and in what ways do the practices of your family serve those functions well and not-so-well?

Due Wednesday, April 27 at 8:30am.