Morte e mundo-da-vida: análise fenomenológica de experiências de coveiros no cemitério do bonfim

Abstract

Considering that the contemporary Western society deals with death through negation, the research investigate how the undertakers cope with the phenomenon in the sociocultural context of "Cemitério do Bonfim", Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. To understand the specificities of the undertakers working field, we based on the following themes: the experience of someone else death (Landsberg); the ritual dynamics (Cazeneuve, Terrin and van Gennep); the ways of dealing with death in traditional and modern societies (Ariès and Elias); and the social-historical context of the cemetery (Almeida). We adopt the classical phenomenology (Husserl and van der Leeuw) as a theoretical and methodological framework for making us aware of the complex relationship between subject and world-of-life, subjectivity and culture. We utilised the ethnographic observation to better understand the investigated phenomenon. We interviewed six undertakers, collecting their professional experiences which were later divided into three main categories: pain when facing death in recognition of alterity; affective experience when facing the numinous as a tension between familiarity and strangeness; and the death experience as life experience. The undertakers experiences in the cemetery routine reveal relationships with the death phenomenon that involve various aspects such as technical and socioeconomic dimensions of the work; the existential drama of the human condition; and the mythical and mysterious spheres revealed by an unpredictable and uncontrollable phenomenon. During the burial, the undertakers participate with their actions and emotions, showing their human values when they observe people suffering and offer care and support. However, such an occasion is not only restricted to experience the drama of death; but also an open field to other experiences, such as the ones related to the exotic and funny aspects. As death reality is fascinating and mysterious, it gives different characteristics to the cemetery. These way, the undertakes move between familiarity and strangeness elaborating the approach and the distance of the boundary where lies the familiar and the different. We conclude that the death phenomenon shows a variety of emotions and experiences in which the dramatic, the mysterious and the tragic are intertwined. Working as undertakers, they can feel the pain of death; offer support; rest from tension; wonder about the human condition; and elaborate the experiences of death from their everyday life experiences.