The Political Ecology of Death: Chinese Religion and The Affective Tensions of Secularised Burial Rituals in Singapore

Abstract

This paper explores the political ecology of death and the affective tensions of secularised burial rituals in Singapore. Although scholars have recently acknowledged the roles of biopower and affect in shaping environmental politics, religion and death as socio-affective forces have not been substantively engaged with by political ecologists. We argue that death is inherently both a spiritual and ecological phenomenon, as it exposes not only the spiritual geographies that structure how people see the natural world, but also the affective tensions and struggles over what counts as a “proper” form of burial in relation to religion and nature. First, we demonstrate how the Singapore state utilises a politico-ecological discourse to secularise Chinese death rituals, such that the death can be separated from the transcendent spheres and incorporated into the environmental biopolitics. Second, we focus on how people's variegated affective inhabitations of religion and secularity condition the political ecology of death. In doing so, this paper foregrounds the roles of religion, secularity and affect in rethinking the “political” of political ecology.