A Morte Em Memórias No Contexto Da Pandemia De Covid-19

Death in contemporary times is desocialized, technicalized, and repressed, as it is, in Eliasian terms, pushed to the backstage of everyday life and seldom discussed. With the COVID-19 pandemic, however, new transformations have emerged in the realm of death due to the constant threat and the rising number of deaths caused by the coronavirus. As a result of public health measures, mourning rituals were either suppressed or hastily performed, making it impossible to hold wakes and funerals properly; in some regions of the country, it was even necessary to bury the dead in mass graves, which significantly disrupted the grieving process. In this context, the present study aims to understand death, funeral rituals, and mourning as social constructs, retrieve and analyze memories of death, and identify the main changes related to death and funerary rites during the pandemic. To do that, the study first undertook a literature review on death and memory. Subsequently, through the methodology of oral history, sought to recover memories and experiences of the pandemic, particularly those connected to death and mourning. Finally, these memories were analyzed, highlighting the principal changes and continuities within the death domain.