The 2020-2021 pandemic led to a massive disruption of ritual practices designed to ensure a 'good death' for loved ones and their families and friends. I will link this general issue to how religious and non-religious professionals reacted to the disruption of traditional rituals in London.
Paper long abstract:
The 2020-2021 pandemic led to a massive disruption of ritual practices designed to ensure a 'good death' for loved ones and their families and friends. I will link this general issue to how religious and non-religious professionals reacted to the disruption of traditional rituals by focussing on the UK's capital city, London, drawing on research undertaken in the city's 'East End' as part of an international project funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung. In the talk I will explore ways in which religious and non-religous professionals sought to ensure 'good deaths' through the performance of traditional and new rituals by comparing the practices performed at the Brick Lane Great Mosque in the heartland of the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets with those devised by the Bangladeshi Muslim female manager of a funeral business in a neighbouring borough.