The Social Life of the Deceased: Impression Management and the Dead Self

• In Event: 367 - Regular Session. Symbolic Interaction 2

Abstract

Drawing from the work of Veblen and early Symbolic Interactionism theorists, this paper demonstrates how people manage the impressions of their future dead self before they die and the role of conspicuous consumption in this process. I also discuss how the dead self requires continued maintenance by the living and how the living can use the authority of impression management to impose a double-consciousness on the deceased. Not only are impressions of the deceased managed by the living, but the living use the deceased as a prop for their own impression management. Thus the living’s relationship with the deceased becomes a status signal within itself. Signification and power are an integral part of death preparation, impression management of the deceased and the use of the deceased as a prop of impression management. Thus, death is inherently social, and the dead self persists after life. I discuss how these processes occur both in person and online.

Author

• Kayla Danielle Russell Pierce, University of Notre Dame