Death, Politics and the Body

Abstract

The relationships between death, politics and the body are multiple, though not all aspects of death are politicised (except in the broad Foucaultian sense). In fact, and in everyday consciousness, the politicisation of death is normally associated with violence on the body. And despite the fact that (statistically speaking) politicised deaths are a minor sub-group in the population of the dead, there can be little doubt that they have the largest impact of all on the living. Indeed, the few deaths which are politicised tell us an enormous amount about both the organisation of death in general and the nature of political debate in particular and it is to these politicised deaths that I wish to turn in this chapter.