Paper short abstract:

In approaching death as a movement of opening rather than closure (Ingold 2011), I explore the spatio-temporal disjunctures between medico-legal trajectories of living and dying, where lives start and stop, and the cyclic comings and goings of Buddhist and Hindu bodies.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I explore the disjuncture between medico-legal trajectories of living and dying, where lives start and stop, and the cyclic comings and goings of Buddhist and Hindu bodies. Drawing on fieldwork with Buddhist and Hindu communities in Adelaide, I reveal the multiple spatio-temporalities that become implicated in end-of-life decision-making about where, when and how one might die. I trace how persons can be affected by what happens after biomedical death, including the handling of the body, how the living may encounter the presence of those who have passed, and how rebirth propels the dead forwards, their bodies and biographies becoming interwoven with new persons and things. In approaching death as a movement of opening (Ingold 2011), I make space for trajectories of living and dying that run counter to public policy instruments that focus on an irrevocable end to life.