Work

Mortal relationality: waria family care and the ethics of dying in Bali

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Can a good death occur for those who balance on the edges of grievability? In Bali, where death marks a transition within the cycles of reincarnation, a good death depends on the mortuary care performed by intimate others – care that may be foreclosed to those whose lives are shaped by stigma. Through the death of Claudia, a Balinese Hindu waria (transgender woman) living with HIV, this article examines how dying well is inseparable from the ethical navigation of life. Drawing on long‐term ethnographic fieldwork on HIV/AIDS‐related care among gay and waria Indonesians, I ask when the relational, moral, and temporal labours of end‐of‐life care begin? Bringing anthropological studies of end‐of‐life care into conversation with existential philosophy, I develop the concept of mortal relationality to describe the ethical mode through which life and death are lived as a continuous moral project. For those dwelling at the margins of social recognition, the ‘choreography of death’ starts long before dying begins. And for them, a good life is not necessarily a long life but one in which a good death, with its relational implications, remains possible.

Source: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

DOI: 10.1111/1467-9655.70195

Author: Sylvia Tidey

Institution: University of Virginia

Language: English

Topic: Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning

Subfield: Anthropology

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,120