Mobilization around COVID justice and remembrance takes different forms and is propelled by a range of organizations, activists, and mourners. A prime example was the multi-sited COVID… Read more “Materializing the Virtual: Engaging in Online and In-Person COVID-19 March to Remember Memorial Events”
Category: Dispatches from the Field
Signs of Insistence and Resistance: Clashing Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic
In the early months of 2022, the United States was once again in the middle of a surge with the omicron variant sweeping through communities across the… Read more “Signs of Insistence and Resistance: Clashing Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic”
Field Notes from ‘In America, how could this happen…’
In a way, these two signs create a moment of ironic condemnation. These are two institutions toward which many Americans look for safety and yet suspended between them is a representation of a quarter-million deceased citizens.
‘When Everything is Stripped Away, What is Left is All We Really Need’
“I cut sprigs and then tucked them in the grave by the coffin. I think these were more meaningful than store-bought flowers because they were her flowers. Her azaleas.”
‘These Are Grievous Times’: In Memoriam at a Lutheran Church in Upstate New York
“One of the most important human things we do is honor our dead and grieve.”
From Croatia to Rhode Island and Back: Struggling to Celebrate a life during the Pandemic
“I also want to celebrate my mom’s life and I’m afraid Zoom would just be about her death. My parents had a beautiful life.”
When One Cannot Sit Shiva
When we spoke to Emma, a 27 year-old social work student in Manhattan, she was still feeling overwhelmed by the deaths of her two grandfathers, Bob and Marty. She was also overwhelmed by the rules Jewish funerals necessitated.
Photos from Reflections: Community Event for the National COVID Memorial
As with so much of this research, we often find ourselves drawn into the very ‘rituals in the making’ that we seek to understand.
Rituals in the Making 