Laughing at the Funeral : gender and anthropology in the Greek funerary rites

Abstract

Funeral ritual is a form of social practice that has not changed much through history, belonging to the taboo area of death. However, the meaning of different ritual practices was changing through the time. Women’s power in patriarchal societies and influence also turns around liminal areas touching taboos, therefore gender-oriented research should answer some important socially constructed questions. Until now there have been many researches dealing with the anthropology of funeral ritual, especially with grief, its expression through lamentation, and its social and psychological role. The idea of researching the relationship between laughter and funeral is to cast a new light on the meaning of the whole ritual, and thus illuminate some hitherto unresearched questions in the field.

Pogrebni obred predstavlja ritualni oblik koji se nije mnogo menjao kroz istoriju i to upravo zbog tabua kojim je smrt okružena. Pa ipak, značenja pojedini ritualnih praksi nestalna su i podložna promeni. Ženska moć u patrijarhalnom društvu pripada upravo liminalnoj sferi ovog tabua, što je iziskivalo rodno orijentisan pristup problematici. I dok se mnoga istraživanja iz oblasti antropologije smrti i pogrebnih rituala bave bolom i izrazom gubitka kroz tužbalice (kako u psihološkom tako i u socijalnom kontekstu), ova knjiga istražuje vezu između smeha i pogrebnog rituala otvarajući novu perspektivu za razumevanje značenja čitavog pogrebnog obreda i osvetljavajući do sada neistražena pitanja u ovoj oblasti.