Introduction to the Special Issue on the Death, Afterlife, and Immortality of Bodies and Data

Abstract

This special issue poses questions concerning death, afterlife and immortality in the age of the Internet. It extends previous work by examining current and emerging practices of grieving and memorializing supported by new media. It suggests that people's lives today are extended, prolonged, and ultimately transformed through the new circulations, repetitions, and recontextualizations on the Internet and other platforms. It also shows that publics are being formed and connected with in new ways, and new practices and rituals are emerging, as the traditional notions of the body are being challenged. We argue that these developments have implications for how people will be discovered and conceived of in the future. We consider possible extensions to the research presented here in terms of people, practices, and data. First, some sections of the population, in particular those who are the dying and populations in developing countries and the Global South, have largely been neglected to date. Second, practices such as (online) suicide and sacrilegious or profane behaviors remain largely uninvestigated. Third, the discussion of the management of the digital self after death has only begun. We conclude by posing further questions concerning the prospect of emerging cities of the dead.

Keywords:

• (after-)death
• the Internet
• hybridization
• publics
• rituals
• historicization

Acknowledgments

© Connor Graham, Martin Gibbs, and Lanfranco Aceti

Notes

1. The term “(after-)death” is used to describe the period following death. It includes considerations of afterlife and immortality. Death is primarily approached here as a recently experienced trauma. (After-)death is approached as a lingering sense of connection, presence, and responsibility for the living, a sense that social media like Facebook can prolong, whether or not it is welcomed by the aggrieved. Even when approached in terms of online selfhood (Bollmer 2013) and resuscitation (Sherlock 2013), (after-)death is largely examined from the point of view of those healthy and alive.

2. This notion of the ghostly presence of the dead sustained through different media is explored by John Durham Peters (1999).

3. Acton Beale, aged 20, died after falling from a balcony while having a photograph of him taken by a friend. Planking “entails people lying face down on their stomach in unusual locations and posting photographs of their act on social media websites” (Gabbatt 2011, online).

4. Our thanks to Gregory Clancey, a historian of science and technology, for this term that illuminates the dramatic impact of the creation and proliferation of the Internet on our lives and our deaths.

5. “Cheryl Jones, 49, from Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent, saw a post on the social networking site which said: ‘She's died. RIP Karla’. Karla James, 30, had died at her home nearby at 20:17 BST on July 23 but Ms Jones was not informed until 23:38 BST” (BBC News South East Wales 2012).

6. “An ingredient in any kind of work where the object being worked on is alive, sentient and reacting–present either because it is deemed necessary to get the work done efficiently or because of humanistic consideration” (Strauss et al. 1985, 129).

7. Consider that the tragic public death of a small child in China was nonchalantly ignored by passers-by when it happened but is viewed again and again by an amorphous public on YouTube (Wines 2011).

8. This was a growth of 92% (7 million to 11.4 million) and 49% (14.9 million to 22.1 million) active users in Brazil and India respectively from October 2010 to February 2011 (Kallis 2012).