Sarah Garnich

My research aims to understand how the relationships between innovative technologies, sustainability discourses, and religious/spiritual belief(s) and practices are framed, understood and negotiated within alternative death social movements. I will examine how technologies—including resomation (alkaline hydrolysis/liquid cremation chemical dissolution), promession (cryogenic freezing and vibrative pulverization), and recomposition (organic conversion of decaying remains to compost)—are being differentially engaged with by three alternative social movements, often associated with radical consumerist critiques of advanced medical technologies. My objectives are to conduct: a critical examination of relevant sociological, thanatological, philosophical, and religious studies research regarding embodiment and mortality, historical and prevailing funereal and decomposition rituals, and spiritual beliefs; a content analysis of corporate iconography and symbolic discourse concerning the ecologically (re)generative capacities and redemptive promises of such disposition technologies; and a cross-comparative discourse analysis of three online coalitional groups (The Order of Good Death, Alcor, and Green Burial Society of Canada).