Death in the family revisited: Ritual expression and controversy in a Creole transnational mortuary sphere

Abstract

On the basis of an ethnographic analysis of the ritual process following the sudden death of a Surinamese migrant, this article shows that while the conceptual polarity of death (good versus bad death) might be clear-cut, the morality of death is both bound and unbound in space and time, and relative to the multiple conditions of bereaved relatives involved. Against the background of transnational migration, multi-territorial belonging, and individual self-making, the article explains the crisscrossing morality of death, and how ambiguity is manifested in ritual organization, arguing that mortuary rites express as much controversy and failure as cohesion and closure.