Articulate Necrographies: Comparative Perspectives on the Voices and Silences of the Dead

Going beyond the frameworks of the anthropology of death, Articulate Necrographies offers a dramatic new way of studying the dead and their interactions with the living. Traditional anthropology has tended to dichotomize societies where death ＂speaks＂ from those where death is ＂silent＂ - the latter is deemed ＂scientific＂ and the former ＂religious＂ or ＂magical＂. The collection introduces the concept of ＂necrography＂ to describe the way death and the dead create their own kinds of biographies in and among the living, and asks what kinds of articulations and silences this in turn produces in the lives of those affected.

Diana Espírito Santo is currently Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology at the Anthropology Program, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She has worked on Afro-Cuban forms of spirit mediumship and Afro-Brazilian religions. Her recent publications include Developing the Dead: Mediumship and Selfhood in Cuban Espiritismo (University Press of Florida, 2015).