The social lives of the dead in Mexicos Day of the dead

Abstract

This postdoc project proposes an ethnographic study of "the social lives of the dead" as they are sustained in the material and visual culture of the Nahua community San Andrés Mixquic during Mexico's famous Day of the dead celebration. In this religious festivity, the dead are said to come back to eat from food offerings put forth to them at altars at cemeteries, at home and in public space. Street altars are often used for satirical political commentary and black humor, so how do they engage with the nation's infamous narco violence and the aftermaths of COVID-19? This project hypothesizes 1) that the dark humor associated with the dead and their altars engage in political critique of the handling of the nation's drug war and the COVID-19; 2) that Mexico's "necrogovernmentality" causes new forms of the nation's "necrosociality"; and 3) that "the duality of days" in the day of the dead is mitigating the common symbolic hierarchy between "good" and "bad" death. In asking, what the day of the dead can do for grieving families who seek to honor their dead, this project will shed light on the relevance of this commemorative ritual in the epoch of human rights and in the wake of the COVID pandemic. Two field trips with participatory fieldwork shall be carried out in San Andrés Mixquic to gather data about its visual material culture and explore how the day of the dead sustains political afterlives. (AU)