ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critical engagement with Jean Baudrillard’s (1993) Symbolic Exchange and Death by discussing how the concept of ‘symbolic exchange’ challenges the modernist account of ‘death denial’ in Western societies (Becker, 1973; Aries, 1974). The ‘denial of death’ thesis is premised on the assumption that culture emerges as a wellspring of human activities to cope with the anxiety of death; to the extent of its radical extradition from life (Baudrillard, 1993; Bauman, 1992). Baudrillard (1993: 147) is highly contemptuous of the exclusion of death in modern societies, claiming that this constitutes a ‘phantasm’ that is concealed through various cultural institutions. Specifically, Baudrillard observes how culture has put in place various survival policies to foster an ‘imaginary’ transcendence (p. 131), as evident in the promise of (1) religion in securing immortality in the ‘afterlife’ (p. 128); (2) scientific rationality in mastering the materiality of death (p. 152) and (3) capitalist political economy in cultivating ‘fantastic secularisation’ through the production and accumulation of capital (p. 129). This chapter focuses its discussion on (2) and (3). In particular, I discuss how the mortal body emerges as a locus of social control and a target of marketplace intervention (Turley, 2005). Baudrillard
explains that this pre-occupation with the body is rooted in the cultural redefinition of death as a biological phenomenon – a concept he calls ‘punctual death’. Tierney (2012; 1997) argues that ‘punctual death’ reflects modernity’s attempt to rationalise death in a scientific manner. Elsewhere, Bauman (1992) contends that the bid for (im)mortality in modernity is poignantly marked by the paradoxical struggle with the body, which is at once a conduit of life and a potent reminder of death. For Baudrillard, as for Bauman, death infiltrates the very fabric of modern lives as individuals invest in various body projects (Shilling, 1993) and cultural practices1 to come to terms with the ephemerality of their mortal coils. Baudrillard argues that such investments create an ‘illusion’ that masks the symbolic absence of death (Perniola, 2011), while simultaneously re-establishes it as an equivalent ‘presence’ in the everyday praxis of life. As Baudrillard argues, modern (consumer) culture is profoundly a ‘culture of death’ (p. 127). Drawing on the writings of Bauman (1992), Turley (2005: 74) argues that ‘much of consumption is a crusade against the eventualities of death’ and that consumer culture ascends in power by providing individuals with avenues to ‘buy their way out of deconstructed death’. Elsewhere, Turley (1997) concurs with Baudrillard, stating that death cannot be conceptualised as a punctual terminus ad quem, which marks the omega point of consumption. Instead, he argues that death is everywhere present in the consumption landscapes and thus needs to be ‘reinstated on an equal footing with living’ (p. 352). He therefore suggests that interesting insights can be gleaned by exploring consumption contexts where death is non-imminent. To date, death studies in consumer research have tended to focus on the role of consumption and (dis)possession that take place during the ‘fateful moment’ (Giddens, 1991) when death is imminent (Turley, 2005). For instance, these studies explore the role of mortuary rituals in the consumption of funerals (Bonsu and Belk, 2003; Gabel et al., 1996; Ozanne, 1992), the role of possessions for the bereaved (O’Donohoe and Turley, 1999; Gentry et al., 1995; Young and Wallendorf, 1989; Turley, 1995), the experience of dispossession among dying consumers (Pavia, 1993; Stevenson and Kates, 1999) and the posthumous memorialisation of the departed (O’Donohoe and Turley, 2006). While these scholars pave the way for the exploration of mortality in consumer research, their studies are nevertheless restricted to the conceptualisation of death as an end-of-life event. This chapter endeavours to broaden the study of death by exploring its concealed presence in consumer culture. This chapter will commence with a review of Baudrillard’s critique of modernity and how this leads to his exploration of ‘symbolic exchange’ as a counter-narrative. The next section revisits the ‘denial of death’ thesis from Baudrillard’s perspective and discusses his deconstruction of the theory. The final sections draw on Baudrillard’s observation to analyse how modern societies construct a culture of hygiene, longevity and security around the mortal body and how the concept of ‘symbolic exchange’ is implicated within these contexts.
