ABSTRACT

Rituals connect individuals with common beliefs and values; they mark transformational events or incidents, and they re-instantiate rules, norms and practices that underlie the social order (Driver, 1998). They may be connected to calendrical rites such as the summer solstice, harvest or new year celebrations, and they may be undertaken to mark rites of passage such as those from single to married, from child to adult, or from living to dead. In all their various forms, rituals carry symbolic meanings (Rook and Levy 1983; Gainer 1995) and the study of ritual has played a key role in advancing understanding of the symbolic aspects of consumption (Rook, 1985; Belk, 1994; Stanfield and Kleine, 1990; Wallendorf and Arnould, 1991; Holt, 1992; Houston, 1999; Ustuner et al., 2000; Minowa, 2008). Studies of death ritual have hitherto tended to focus on the consumption activities connected to funeral rites, both in the West (e.g. Price et al., 2000; Metcalf and Huntington, 1991) and beyond (Bonsu and Belk, 2003: see also Bond, 1980; Goody, 1962). The consumer research literature on death and consumption has begun to contribute valuable insights into theories and practices of how consumers manage the experience of the death of loved ones and the rituals which accompany the fundamental rite of passage from life, to death (O’Donohoe and Turley, 2005, 2000; Bonsu and Belk, 2003; Bonsu and DeBerry-Spence, 2008; Gentry et al., 1995; Davies, 1997). In addition, studies have provided insights into the linkage between the achievement of secular immortality and consumer affluence (Hirschman, 1990), and the meanings and practices of the disposition of possessions of the dead (Kates, 2001; Price et al., 2000). Three consumer culture studies in particular look into death rituals and death consumption in a non-Western context: Bonsu and Belk (2003) (and a subsequent work by Bonsu and DeBerry-Spence, 2008); Zhao and Belk’s (2003; 2008) study of Chinese death ritual consumption; and Wattanasuwan’s (2005) research on the paper burning ritual in Thailand. In anthropological studies, death ritual as a sub-category of ritual can take many forms, some of which reflect local traditions and myths. They can evolve into spectacular, and, sometimes, commercially inflected, tourist attractions. Death rituals might celebrate life or death, and they might serve to distil fears and superstitions into a single time period and event, thereby dissipating their power to instill fear or dread (Driver, 1998). In the Western

tradition, death ritual may be focused on funeral rites that enable the living to come to terms with the loss of loved ones and also, perhaps, with their own mortality. These strategies of grief management are sometimes grouped under the category terror management theory (TMT) (Bonsu and Belk, 2003). Death ritual around funeral rites have different meanings in the East and West. In the West, death marks the end of life, and therefore, of consumption (Borgmann, 2000: Hirschman et al., 2013). In Eastern death ritual, though there is no such finality, reflecting the different eschatologies between Buddhism and Taosim in the East, and the Western Judeao-Christian-Islamic tradition. Asian Buddhist death rituals celebrate death as a natural progression on the Wheel of Life. For Buddhists, the dead are always with us, as a literal presence in everyday life, especially at propitious times. The dead may be mischievous or may be malign, if they are tormented ghosts, or they may be benign and contented ancestors who bring blessings to the living. The destinies of the dead and the living are inter-twined in Buddhist death rituals, and the intimacy of this connection is evident in many Asian death rituals. In rituals connected to death, the possessions of both the deceased and the living assume symbolic importance (see, for example, Belk et al., 1989; Belk, 1988, 1991; Gentry et al., 1995; Turley, 1995, 1998; Carroll and Romano, 2010). For example, the possessions of the dead might have special status conferred upon them, to be preserved, gifted to special individuals, or eliminated, while some mourners will offer gifts to the bereaved, or for the benefit of the dead themselves. Symbolic exchange can be socially visible in death ritual, such as when gifts are given to the bereaved (Bonsu and DeBerry-Spence, 2008; Bonsu and Belk, 2003; Langer, 2007). In Asian death ritual, exchange can also occur within liminal spaces, for example where ghosts or the deceased are placated with offerings such as food or models of consumer goods or money to be ritually burned, for use in the after life. These symbolic exchanges serve to maintain relationships between the living and the dead, fulfilling Driver’s (1998) ‘gifts’ of order and community within transformation. We will now outline the role of the hungry ghost mythology across parts of Asia and, in particular, in the Thai Theravāda Buddhist tradition. We will then briefly describe the method, followed by an account of selected features of the festival that we focus on for this chapter, before discussing the main themes that emerged from the analysis of the various data sets. Finally, we discuss the insights that emerge to contour our understanding of the role of death ritual in Asian consumer culture.