In Japan, with a high-aging/low birthrate population, more deaths than births every year, and a declining family system, the number of those dying graveless and socially all alone has risen exponentially. Just as stories of "lonely death" are commonplace, so is the specter of wandering ghosts-the disconnected dead left homeless in death. Yet to counter this trend, a booming industry has now arisen around endingness that serves aging singles "without anyone else to depend upon" (miyoriga nai). Urged to prepare ahead of time by making mortuary arrangements by and for oneself, subjects bring death into the present and into a sociality of self-responsibility where anticipatory death-preparation becomes a craft all its own. Warding against ungrievability, the to-be-dead arrange for something else. What precisely this is and with what implications (on the temporality, sociality, and ontology of life as well as death) are the issues raised in this talk.
Register for the Zoom meeting: bit.ly/JapanForum21-22
