Work

Erased by law: Kinship, care, and bureaucratic exclusion at the end of life in South Korea

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article examines how institutional frameworks in South Korea erase nonlegal caregiving relationships within hospice care environments. Drawing on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork, the study delineates how patients are categorized as "unclaimed" despite the presence of long-term companions or cohabitants who provide intimate end-of-life care. It further explores how these exclusions extend beyond dying, shaping postmortem decision-making and the institutional recognition of grief. Legal frameworks rooted in the hojeok (family registry) dictate who is authorized to grieve, make decisions, or be acknowledged as kin. Through two cases, the article demonstrates how bureaucratic classifications function as moral technologies that erase relational labor and constrain affective ties. Engaging feminist care ethics and anthropological theories of relatedness, it argues that unclaimed death is not the absence of kinship but the result of its legal misrecognition. By tracing everyday mechanisms of exclusion, the study calls for rethinking recognition, care, and kinship at end-of-life.

Source: Medical Anthropology Quarterly

DOI: 10.1111/maq.70067

Author: Seok Joo Youn

Institution: Washington University in St. Louis

Language: English

Topic: Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning

Subfield: Anthropology

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,400