Funeral Culture

"Funeral Culture offers a detailed ethnography of funerals in South African Swaziland, and scholars and students alike can breathe fresh air with this comparison of the neo-funeral cultural changes amongst the Southern African countries."—Reading Religion

"Original and insightful, Golomski's Funeral Culture is a vivid example of the work of a new generation of Africanist anthropologists. It posits a lucid and compelling account of the 'work' that funerals do to both reproduce and change culture in a context that, at the time, was being decimated by AIDS. Golomski's superb analysis shows what, as an ethnographic method, listening and deep care can yield. Beautifully written, ethnographically rich, multi-layered, and empathetic, this is anthropology at its best."—Nolwazi Mkhwanazi, editor (with Deevia Bhana) of Young Families: Gender, Sexuality and Care

"Funeral Culture is an intimately observed portrait of changing burial rites in a country struggling under the burden of HIV. Golomski at once plunges into the rhythms of everyday life in Swaziland and gestures out toward broader questions about the work of kinship and death. Brimming with colorful characters and rich descriptions, written in welcoming and accessible prose: this is ethnography at its best. A marvelous accomplishment."—Jason Hickel, author of Democracy as Death: The Moral Order of Anti-Liberal Politics in South Africa

"A highly original account of death and funeral cultures in southern Africa that enlarges understandings of 'postcolonial cultural production' as the outcome of both vernacular and state-driven historical consciousness and processes."—Hansjörg Dilger, author of Religion and AIDS Treatment in Africa: Saving Souls, Prolonging Life

"Explores the AIDS epidemic's impact on people, families, institutions, and the state. Casey Golomski shows how people come to terms with the impact of disease, how they were affected, and how cultural change has occurred in the process, particularly in funerary culture."—John M. Janzen, author of The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa