Brain Death, Symbolization and Rituals

• In Event: Diagnosing Death: Critical STS Perspectives - III

Abstract

This study shows the repercussions of brain death in grief and post-morten rituals of relatives of the deceased. The data arose from a qualitative research where twenty people who donated the organs of a family member in brain death were interviewed. This way of dying produces to the relatives the illusion of life in the deceased as well as emotional and cognitive confusion. The body with a beating heart doesn't seem to prove death. Although establishing the body as a biological organism allows brain death to be accepted, diagnostic technology and the support of mechanical oxygenation also raise doubts about the veracity of death. Narrative productions intertwine biological, spiritual and affective notions. Besides the acceptance of death, there persists the need to challenge and not admit the demise of the loved. In the post-morten rituals the life-death duality is evidenced as a conflict that requires a symbolic elaboration that the bio-medical discourse still could not resolve. If the particular characteristics of the brain death experience are not taken into account, there is the risk to assess this griefs as pathological resorting to what the psychological and psychiatric manuals indicate. Technology produces changes in death, transforming and intervening in mourning as a factor that must be considered. Narratives provide elements to analyze the framework between science, technology and society in the context of the subjective and cultural transformations of our time.

Author

• María Pilar Bacci, Universidad de la República