Technologies of the HIV/AIDS Corpse

Abstract

In the early 1980s, unprecedented numbers of gay men and intravenous drug users began dying of what would later become known as HIV/AIDS. What the HIV/AIDS corpse posed was a direct challenge to the institutional controls developed by funeral directors to normalize and transform the dead body. How the funeral service industry reacted and changed in response to the emergence of the HIV/AIDS corpse offers an opportunity to re-examine the productive potential of the dead human body. My article examines the epidemic's production of what I call the HIV/AIDS corpse, and the institutional affects those corpses had on the US funeral service industry. The theoretical concept I use to analyze the productive qualities of the HIV/AIDS corpse is the technologies of the corpse. These technologies are the machines, laws, and institutions that control the corpse by classifying, organizing, and physically transforming it. What emerges from the institutional challenges posed by the HIV/AIDS corpse is a specific kind of dead body that offers political possibilities for both the concept of a queer body and the broader subject of human death.

Key Words:

• corpse
• death
• embalming
• funeral industry
• HIV/AIDS
• queer theory

This article is part of a larger project on the technological alterations made to the human corpse. His first book, Technologies of the Human (University of North Carolina Press), will appear in 2011. His father is a funeral director.

Notes

The National Funeral Directors Association, based in Milwaukee, WI, was formed in 1880 and remains one of the world's largest national funeral service organizations. See http://www.nfda.org for more information.

The eight “embalming precautions” are as follows: (1) Embalmers should wear double rubber gloves and a disposable apron, plus a mask making sure that their hair is covered. (2) Instruments should be washed in 1:10 Clorox solution. (3) Aprons and gloves used during embalming should be placed in a plastic bag and incinerated as soon as possible. (4) Use goggles or a pair of glasses. (5) Use shoe covers and dispose of along with the gloves and apron. (6) The table and floor should be washed with the Clorox solution. (7) Rags and towels used during the preparation should be destroyed. (8) If the body is being viewed, the family should avoid having physical contact with it.

In 1992, the Infectious/Contagious Disease Committee of the Funeral Directors Services Association of Greater Chicago commissioned a study that asked: How long does HIV survive in a dead human body? The reports authors' explain: “The risk of contamination from infected blood or bodily fluids is an extremely important consideration for those who work with deceased AIDS patients…. Rumors abound: the virus dies immediately, within 24 hours, after 7 days, or is killed by refrigeration. Funeral directors desperately need factual evidence on which to base their actions and set their minds at ease, but none has been forthcoming. Until now” (FDSAGC 1993:56).

The Program of Mortuary Science at the University of Minnesota is one of the oldest programs of its kind in America. On November 1, 2008 the Program hosted a Centennial Celebration. See http://www.med.umn.edu/mortsci/home.html.

OSHA provides the following information on universal precautions: “On December 6, 1991, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) promulgated the Occupational Exposure to Bloodborne Pathogens Standard. This standard is designed to protect approximately 5.6 million workers in the health care and related occupations from the risk of exposure to bloodborne pathogens, such as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the Hepatitis B Virus.” For more information on universal precautions see www.osha.gov.

This legal claim to a decedent's remains is one of the many issues involved with making same sex marriage legal in the United States. Washington DC and New York both honor same-sex marriages from other states and countries. With all the other spousal benefits associated with the legal definition of marriage comes the legal right to a same-sex spouse's postmortem human remains. Without this recognition, same sex partners are not legally next of kin.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Erik Troyer

JOHN TROYER is the Death and Dying Practices Associate and the RCUK Research Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, England.