ABSTRACT
This paper argues that a number of people who live alone make the decision to withdraw from social contact with others and thus enter a self-imposed period of social death prior to their biological deaths. In doing so, they are exhibiting agency and creating identities for themselves that are based on personal choice, in accordance with the late-modern project (Giddens, 1991). Occasionally, such life choices will result in the death of the individual taking place in circumstances where their body is not found for some considerable time, and societal responses when this occurs indicate that the life choices made by that person when alive are not considered legitimate (Bauman, 2005). There are consequences for the deceased individual who lived and died alone, in that the socially perceived illegitimacy of their life choices may result in their lives and deaths being investigated and their identities recast after death in a form of social life revival (Langer, Scourfield, & Fincham, 2008). This paper makes use of a case study, drawn from pilot research, to explore how this may occur.
