Thanato-technics: Temporal Horizons of Death and Dying.

Summary

Advances in end-of-life technologies challenge conventional ideas of personhood, identity, and ethics, often forcing these concepts into rigid, binary categories. In response, some in the West have looked to Tibetan Buddhist practices surrounding death. This article introduces the term "thanato-technics" to describe how technologies are used to explore or speculate about the inner experiences of the dead and dying, focusing on research involving the postmortem bodies of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners in India. The concept highlights the temporalities—imagined or real—that such technologies evoke and invest in.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Advances in end-of-life technologies increasingly destabilize received notions of personhood, identity, and ethics. As notions of personhood and identity within such systems are made to conform to discrete, binary and less fluid categories, some in the West have sought guidance in the techniques and views related to the dying process cultivated in other cultures, particularly Tibetan Buddhism. This article considers such dynamics as they unfolded in research focused on the postmortem bodies of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners in India. This article introduces the term thanato-technics to highlight the temporalities, imaginary or otherwise, evoked, enabled, and invested through the use of technologies to ascertain or conjecture about the intrasubjectivity of the dead and dying.