Döden och identiteten

Gravar och begravningar som kulturell kommunikation

Abstract

The article describes a multicultural Swedish grave quarter and three immigrants funerals; one Catholic-Chilean, one Catholic-Polish and one Mormon-Polish. The analysis elucidates how funerals and graveyards signal different ethnic or cultural adherence and henceforth can be employed as communicative symbolic actions for the construction of ethnic and cultural identity. The theoretical perspectives draws on ritual studies (Driver, 1991; Durkheim, 1915/1965; Myerhoff, 1984; van Gennep, 1960), Goffman's (1967) notion of self-presentation, and studies of ethnicity (Barth 1971; 1994). The study focuses on situations in which ethnicity is actualised and brought to the fore as essential traits of individual or collective identity. The grave quarter, where people from different countries are buried side by side, reflects and plays a part in the construction of a new multicultural Sweden. A comparison between mainstream Swedish funeral practices and practices at immigrant funerals indicates that death rituals can be employed to enhance, subsume, or to fuse social boundaries. The Catholic-Chilean funeral stands out as a ritual that mainly is boundary maintaining. The Catholic-Polish funeral as a ritual where traits from different traditions are mixed so that the ritual plays a part in constructing a new social group, a Swedish-Polish group. The Mormon-Polish funeral celebrates neither the Polish heritage nor the life in Sweden, but the chosen identity as a Mormon.