TY - JOUR
T1 - Trying to keep you
T2 - how grief, abjection, and ritual transform the social meanings of a human body
AU - Nations, Courtney
AU - Baker, Stacey Menzel
AU - Krszjzaniek, Eric
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the Association for Consumer Research and the Sheth Foundation for funding this project through a grant that supports Transformative Consumer Research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2017/9/3
Y1 - 2017/9/3
N2 - The present research illuminates how the grief process and the abject force us to confront and reconcile the strangeness of a loved one’s lifeless human body. We find that the grief process, initially fueled by abjection, moves the social meanings of a human body in death through three stages: (1) divorcing the deceased’s identity from the body, (2) seeking tangible substitutes, and (3) attaining meaning outside the physical realm. These findings reveal how the process of grief, the abject, and the ritual practices surrounding it, transform the social meanings of a human body and other related symbolic consumption items. This work contributes to the literature by illuminating our understanding of the fluidity of identity that extends beyond a person’s natural life and by revealing how renegotiating the relationship with a physical body is important for the self-preservation of the living.
AB - The present research illuminates how the grief process and the abject force us to confront and reconcile the strangeness of a loved one’s lifeless human body. We find that the grief process, initially fueled by abjection, moves the social meanings of a human body in death through three stages: (1) divorcing the deceased’s identity from the body, (2) seeking tangible substitutes, and (3) attaining meaning outside the physical realm. These findings reveal how the process of grief, the abject, and the ritual practices surrounding it, transform the social meanings of a human body and other related symbolic consumption items. This work contributes to the literature by illuminating our understanding of the fluidity of identity that extends beyond a person’s natural life and by revealing how renegotiating the relationship with a physical body is important for the self-preservation of the living.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85029506325&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85029506325&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10253866.2017.1367678
DO - 10.1080/10253866.2017.1367678
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85029506325
VL - 20
SP - 403
EP - 422
JO - Consumption Markets and Culture
JF - Consumption Markets and Culture
SN - 1025-3866
IS - 5
ER -