Death in the Early Twenty-first Century; Acknowledgments; Contents; List of Figures; List of Tables; 1 Introduction; The Anthropology of Death and Sociocultural Change; Agency, Authority, and Memory in Changing Mortuary Practices; Agency; Authority; Memory; Agency, Authority, and the Uses of Tradition; Personhood, Memory, and Technology; Individual, Choice, and Identity; Looking Ahead at the Anthropological Study of Death; Note; References; Part I Culture, Religion, and the Uses of Tradition; 2 Fear and Prayers: Negotiating with the Dead in Apiao, Chiloé (Chile)

Guilt versus Innocence: Death, People, and Their Animals"Struck by Evil Fate": Toby the Dog; "The Tragedy": Mueve-Mueve the Bitch; The Funeral Celebrations; "What Will the Dead Do to Me?"; Frightening Dead; Dreaming the Dead; Vengeful Souls; The Day of All Saints and of All Souls; Protection: Vulnerable Dead and Vulnerable Living; Alliances; Conclusion: Remembering, or Forgetting?; Notes; References; 3 Quelling the "Unquiet Dead": Popular Devotions in the Borderlands of the USSR; The Certainty and Uncertainty of Death; Secularization and the Links Between Generations; Lived Religion

Death Rituals as Lived ReligionConclusion; Notes; References; 4 Life After Death/Life Before Death and Their Linkages: The United States, Japan, and China; The Social Analysis of Life After Death; Life After Death, Past and Present; The United States; Japan; China; Life After Death/Life Before Death and Their Linkages; Notes; References; Part II Personhood, Memory, and Technology; 5 Reincarnation, Christianity and Controversial Coffins in Northwestern Benin; Background; Composition of the Person and Reincarnation; Old and New Times; Coffins; Dihuude and the Grave Pot; Material Transformation

Being ModernReincarnation Versus "Eternal Life"; Conclusion; Notes; References; 6 For the Solace of the Young and the Authority of the Old Death: Photography in Acholi, Northern Uganda; Background: Of War, Death, and the Visibility of the Dead; Death Rituals in a Changing Society; The Visibility of the Dead; Helping the Children of the Dead; "He Was Here": The Story of Christopher; Photographs as Mediations of the Absent and Vessels of Memory; Reproducing the Authority of the Elders: Generating Familial Memory Through Photography; Inventing a Family History

The Perpetuation of the Authority of EldersThe Social Life of Photographs of the Dead; The Agency of Photographs; Photography, Grieving, and the Passing of Time; Conclusion; Notes; References; 7 Mediating Mortality: Transtemporal Illness Blogs and Digital Care Work; Methods; Intersubjective Illness Blogs; Transtemporal Imaginaries; Embodied Ambivalence and Digital Care Work; Networked Remains; Conclusion; Notes; References; Blogs; Part III Individual, Choice, and Identity; 8 Agency and the Personalization of the Grave in Japan; From Ancestral Graves to Tree Burial