“Japan, a former economic powerhouse full of cutting-edge technology and affluence, has turned into a society full of disparities, anxieties, and loneliness after the repeated crises of the last thirty years. Anne Allison found that the key to seeing this transformation is the change in how death is treated. Through thrilling fieldwork, she reveals the lives of people wriggling in the deep darkness of decline. Being Dead Otherwise vividly depicts the new society that now emerges.” - Shunya Yoshimi, Professor of Sociology, University of Tokyo
“Anne Allison is among the most respected, productive, and insightful writers on relationships, time and loss, labor, and the nonhuman in and beyond a Japanese context. In Being Dead Otherwise she knits together her thinking over a career, attending to the important topic of the study of death, the ethics and productivity of the end-time, and the condition of the future across the disciplines. At stake is the very grievability of life at a time when the affective and economic costs of mourning become prohibitive.” - Lawrence Cohen, Professor of Medical and Sociocultural Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
"This is an extraordinary book. . . . Startling stories of mortician contests, robot Buddhist priests, and clean-up crews dealing with the odor of death illustrate change and the crisis of care in a society where good health care has made very old age a common experience, yet family and community have not kept up to provide solatia and death care for the increasing population of those in need. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals." - M. White, Choice
“As an ethnography of death, these stories are as diverse as the humans they represent . . . Being Dead Otherwise is a highly recommended read not only for those who are interested in Japanese death rituals and concepts of the world beyond the living, but also for those who want to explore what it means when a society is faced with extreme ageing, dissolution of large family structures, urbanization, and potential anonymization.” - Marius Palz, Folklore
"Allison’s writing is both straightforward and vivid, making her story relatable to those readers not entirely familiar with contemporary Japan; there is also something endearingly warm about her voice, as she considers this book 'the most personal of all my scholarly endeavors' (p. xi)." - Shunsuke Nozawa, American Ethnologist
"For researchers who make developing the cross-cultural model of grief central to their scholarship Being Dead Otherwise should be one of the important books in their library."
- Dennis Klass, Omega
"The methods of the book are a lively combination of anthro-journalistic techniques for tracing out leads. . . . Not in the least technical, this book is easily accessible to anyone interested in how contemporary Japan is preparing – or not – for this part of its aging future." - Robert C. Marshall, Anthropology and Aging
"Allison stitches together a fascinating patchwork of scenes from various sites across Japan, revealing the potential of necro-animism to capture both practices of care and of control." - Jason Danely, Journal of Development Studies
"For this research, Anne Allison chose a dark subject which most people do not feel comfortable discussing. Yet, in a very decent and gracious manner, the author has managed to capture a grave theme such as death in a completely different perspective." - Rana Abhyendra Singh, IIAS Review
"Tidying up before death. Making certain the orderly processions of the world continue unperturbed. These principles resonate in worlds apart from Japan. Deceptively expansive, Being Dead Otherwise quietly upsets [Robert] Hertz’s well-worn formula—for death-making survives even when the last word no longer remains with life." - Jack Jiang, Anthropology Now
"This book will be of interest to scholars and graduate students interested in necro versus biopolitics, relationality and affect, and care work." - Pamela Runestad, Journal of Asian Studies
"Being Dead Otherwise is a seminal ethnographic work on death, and a refreshing counter to the crisis narratives commonly used to describe modern Japan. . . . This is an important work on modern Japan but also for the studies of end-of-life and death more generally, presenting not only other ways of being dead but also other ways of living in anticipation of death." - Natasha Durie, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford
"The strength of the present work lies in Allison’s nuanced fieldwork with bereaved families, those anticipating their own death, and representatives of the funeral industry. She has done a brilliant job of describing the fast-changing deathscape here in Japan." - Tom Gill, Journal of Japanese Studies
"Allison has provided a valuable, interdisciplinary exploration of modern death styles in Japan. As a contribution to scholarship, the book provides new anthropological material and extensive ethnographic evidence to demonstrate how societal shifts in demographics, technologies and beliefs/secularisation impact on death and dying. It provides a careful and sympathetic account of old customs, but its real contribution is an analysis of the problem and value of innovation in ritual, in corpse disposal and in storage." - Claire Nally, Contemporary European History
“Urgent, deeply researched, and ethically attuned, Being Dead Otherwise asks how we manage the dead and how we honor them when systems of death tending fail. . . . Being Dead Otherwise is highly recommended for those exploring death in both cultural and practical dimensions.”
- Margaret Bell,
OMEGA
