'Afterword: Play, Personhood and Digital Mortality'

Davies, Douglas J.

Abstract

This Afterword echoes our editors’ framing of this Special Issue as seeking to both sketch the ‘state of the art’ and indicate some ‘future avenues’ for research in digital death. Accordingly, I will first highlight selected concepts explored in previous chapters before focusing on the notions of play, personhood, allurement, and fear as notions for ongoing consideration.
This perspective supports our editors’ depiction of digital death as a hybrid field sustained by a considerable variety of established academic disciplines extended into opportunities for innovative work. They are obviously right not only in seeing how changing times align with shifts in values and research perspectives but also in judiciously noting that, as in the case of ritual, digital rites do ‘not necessarily call for new versions of ritual theory’.
One firm acknowledgement of this chapter reflects the goal of the CHANSE programme that funds our Digital Death (DiDe) Project in which I am a grateful partner, along with Dr Georgina Robinson, based at Durham University. CHANSE abbreviates the Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe, and, in what follows, I seek to bring my own research background in both the humanities, especially in theology, and in the social sciences, especially in anthropology and sociology, to bear upon issues of digitally framed mortality. A sketched autobiography of my death-related research will help frame my perspective on previous chapters and provide a basis for my suggestions for future study concerning the theoretical notions of play or ludic theory and of ‘dividual’ personhood, along with brief reference to allurement and fear.

Citation

Davies, D. J. (2024). 'Afterword: Play, Personhood and Digital Mortality'. Social Sciences, 13(8), Article 384. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13080384

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 18, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Jul 23, 2024
• Publication Date: Jul 23, 2024
• Deposit Date: Aug 13, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: May 21, 2025
• Journal: Social Sciences
• Electronic ISSN: 2076-0760
• Publisher: MDPI
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 8
• Article Number: 384
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13080384
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2751484