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ICS0010.1177/1367877920924426International Journal of Cultural StudiesKoksvik

International Journal of Cultural Studies

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DOI: 10.1177/1367877920924426
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Original Article
Neoliberalism, individual
responsibilization and the
death positivity movement

Gitte H Koksvik
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim

Abstract
In this article I offer a critical analysis of the loosely defined death positivity movement. Death
positivity presents itself as oppositional and liberating, gaining legitimacy by reference to the
narratives of death taboo and death denial. I show how the movement encourages extending
continuous, self-reflexive engagement in identity and lifestyle to dying and death, arguing that
death positivity employs and advocates a particular enterprising culture and furthers a neoliberal
discourse of individual responsibilization. To make my argument, I look more closely at the
death-positive discourse as it is furthered by two North American initiatives in particular; Death
Over Dinner as presented by its founder Michael Hebb in the 2018 book about the initiative, and
selected videos published by Order of the Good Death, spearheaded by mortician, author and
YouTube personality Caitlin Doughty.

Keywords
death awareness, death positivity, death taboo, entrepreneurial self, governmentality, identity,
neoliberalism

‘Death is having a moment in the sun’: thus reads the headline of a 2018 ‘long read’
feature in the New York Times (Leland, 2018). A Guardian piece from the same year
claims that death has gotten ‘cool’ (Meltzer, 2018). These two articles both describe
some of the many initiatives and subcultural lifestyle trends that currently circulate, not

Corresponding author:
Gitte H Koksvik, Programme for Applied Ethics, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Høgskoleringen 1, 7491 Trondheim, Norway.
Email: gitte.koksvik@ntnu.no
2 International Journal of Cultural Studies 00(0)

least in North America and the UK, but also in many other so-called Western countries
and that oftentimes get dubbed loosely as ‘death positivity’ or the ‘death-positive move-
ment’. Recently, the Global Wellness Trends report (2019) dedicated a chapter to ‘dying
well’ wherein ‘death positivity’ featured heavily. The death-positive movement aims to
increase engagement with, knowledge of and talk about death and may be regarded as
the latest enactment of the ‘death awareness movement’ of the 1970s and as furthering a
revivalist script as theorized by Walter (1994; see also Richards et al., 2020). A funda-
mental claim of this movement as a whole, both in the late 20th century and today, is the
contention that Western cultures suffer under a death taboo or a form of denial of death;
that the way end of life and dying is handled is deeply problematic, causing alienation,
disempowerment and suffering, and that attitudinal and practical change is necessary.
The movement of the 1970s coincided with a wider critique of modernity, and advocated
for a different socio-medical approach to dying in particular. In contrast, current death
positivity is intimately linked to identity politics, lifestyle industries and commercial
interests (Richards et al., 2020). Indeed, the contemporary death-positive climate corre-
sponds well to what Fortuin et al. (2016) have conceptualized as a postmodern expressive
thanatological niche: death-related cultural affordances grounded in perceived authentic
and often aesthetic self-expression, which challenges modernist, scientific, or rationalist
worldviews.
To date, media has shown death positivity more interest than has academia and there
has been very little research or critical attention directed toward the contemporary initia-
tives. In the present article, I wish to propose a critical reading of this cultural climate in
general. I turn my attention not to the workings of any one initiative but to the movement
itself, however loosely defined. I am inspired by Árnason and Hafsteinsson’s (2003)
analysis of the revival of death through a lens of governmentality. Building on this work,
I argue that death positivity employs and furthers a neoliberal discourse of individual
responsibilization. Indeed, continuous, self-reflexive engagement in identity and life-
style formation has been well documented by sociologists as a feature of postmodern life
(Bauman, 1992, 2000; Giddens, 1991; Rainsborough, 2011; Rose, 1996). I will show
how the movement encourages extending this to dying, death and beyond. To make my
argument, I look more closely at this discourse as it is furthered by two North American
initiatives in particular: Death Over Dinner, as presented by its founder Michael Hebb in
the 2018 book about the initiative and selected videos published by Order of the Good
Death, spearheaded by mortician, author and YouTube personality, Caitlin Doughty in
their section ‘Ask a Mortician’. Hebb and Doughty represent two very different initia-
tives. Yet they are both examples of what Walter (2017: 1) has characterized as ‘death
entrepreneurs’.
The article is structured as follows. First, I provide a short section on the analytical
framework of neoliberalism and individual responsibilization. I then move on to con-
sider death positivity, commenting on the key characteristics of the movement, before
going on to look more closely at concrete examples, especially by Death Over Dinner
and Order of the Good Death, and analysing these in relation to reflexive self-identity
formation, individual responsibility and authority. In conclusion, I provide a summary of
the main points and arguments presented.
Koksvik 3

Neoliberalism and responsibilization

The concept of neoliberalism has been much used in social scientific analyses of state
responsibility, socioeconomic organization and reflexive self-government (Cook, 2016).
It is characterized by a displacement of state responsibility onto the private individual
(Rainsborough, 2011: 75). As such, neoliberalism can be characterized as a move away
from social welfare being the responsibility of government through a reinterpretation of
governance (Cook, 2016: 142). Here, the rationale of governing is based largely on indi-
viduals’ capacity for and expectation to act upon and control themselves. Individual
‘responsibilization’ is achieved through techniques that encourage subjects, envisioned
as free and empowered, to take responsibility for their own choices and subject forma-
tion, acting upon themselves rather than responding to direct forces of external power
(Rose, 1990: 146).
This is echoed by Zygmunt Bauman in his influential theories of ‘liquid modernity’.
Bauman (2000) claims there are two main features which make the current era novel and
different. The first is the collapse of modern beliefs in the future and in our mastery of it,
with the loss of the possibility to reach a just society. The second is pervasive deregula-
tion and privatization of modernizing tasks, by which any improvements upon society, as
upon individual lives, become the responsibility of individuals themselves. The strategy
thus, becomes one according to which individuals are expected to find biographical solu-
tions to systemically produced problems (Bauman, 2002: 177).
Sociologists have analysed how, faced with the crumbling of grand narratives and the
unquestioned power of tradition, contemporary Western individuals take on the constant
task of reflexively creating and maintaining their own identity (e.g. Bauman, 1992, 2000;
Giddens, 1991; Mellor and Schilling, 1993). Reflexive self-identity formation becomes
an activity which must be continuously engaged in and individuals are encouraged to
make a project of themselves and of their emotional world, and to develop a style of liv-
ing, making them, in Rose’s words (1990: 149) ‘engineers of the human soul’. Work
upon the self becomes an investment in capital (Cook, 2016) and the self is managed as
if it were a business (Gershon, 2016). An underlying presumption of this responsibiliza-
tion is that everybody is equally able to shape their life trajectory and possesses the same
tools with which to solve life’s problems (Bauman, 2002: 177).
According to some, the process of creation has become a goal of development itself,
rather than achieving any resulting identity. Indeed, Jayne Rainsborough (2011) pro-
poses that self-betterment and growth are increasingly seen as never-fulfilled projects
and becoming is the way in which being is done. Activities of becoming, she argues, are
today coded as the activities of life itself, to a point where being a finished product would
be culturally unintelligible. Crucially, moreover, such becoming must not be silent or
unseen. It is not enough that the individual experiences their own change; it must be
displayed and known by others (Rainsborough, 2011: 51). As individuals are obligated
to get in touch with their feelings, these feelings must receive external validation. This is
achieved through disclosure – preferably in public. Self-expression through so-called
‘sharing’, therefore, the act of turning private sentiments, emotions and troubles into
public stories, strongly resonates with these cultural norms (Bauman, 2000; Furedi,
4 International Journal of Cultural Studies 00(0)

2013: 22, 38, 40). Correspondingly, silence is associated with insincerity or repression
(Armstrong, 1987).
The emphasis on expressivity was articulated by Lyn Lofland in her analysis of the
1970s death awareness movement, which she memorably labelled ‘the happy death
movement’. Lofland (1978: 79) claimed that ‘in some important senses, the movement is
talk’ and argued that ‘Great quantities of its doings involve talking, therapeutically and
educationally about death and dying’. Francis (2019) echoes this sentiment in an epi-
logue to Lofland’s work. She suggests that the main argument of both death awareness
and death positivity is that better dying requires talk and legislation (Francis, 2019: 88).
Indeed, the contemporary revival of death, Walter (1994) finds, relies heavily on notions
from psychology and the therapeutic ideal that what can be articulated can be managed.
However, the subject itself is also created through this process of articulation. This can
be observed in the conceptualization of the postmodern expressive thanatological niche.
According to Fortuin et al. (2016), it encourages the projection of one’s self-identity into
the future through aesthetic work, thus creating symbolic immortality by leaving a per-
sonal legacy. Published personal accounts of death and bereavement are key examples of
this. The expressive thanatological niche also encourages ‘ritualizing’: re-inventing and
reimagining ritual in an embodied and social process, using the materials provided by
available cultures and traditions, as well as the preparation of one’s own, personalized
funeral (Fortuin et al., 2016: 342–3).
Bearing this in mind, we now move on to look more closely at the phenomenon of
death positivity.

What is death positivity?

There is no strict definition of the death-positive movement. Like its predecessor, death
awareness, death positivity is critical of medicalization, displays anti-institutional senti-
ments, champions personalized care, and sees dying as an opportunity for personal
growth. However, rather than focusing its advocacy on the spatial reorganization of
death, current death positivity argues for diversification of end-of-life options and seeks
to educate people about their choices (Francis, 2019: 87, 90–1). Moreover, I argue, death
positivity presents itself as an attitude or a lifestyle option. Loosely, I propose that death
positivity applies to groups, initiatives or products the philosophy behind which is cate-
gorized by the following two main features: (1) they promote and hail the beneficial
effects of engaging with and talking about death and dying; (2) they position their activi-
ties or output against a narrative of societal death taboo or death denial.

The death taboo thesis and narrative of death denial

Since the 1960 and 1970s, academics and social commentators alike have routinely main-
tained that death has become taboo and that Western cultures are collectively death deny-
ing. It is often argued that death is removed from the everyday life of most people in the
post-industrial global North (Walter, 2017: 107) and, compared to previous periods in his-
tory, this would seem accurate. This development is most commonly attributed to social
changes such as bureaucratization, secularization, medicalization and individualism
Koksvik 5

(Walter, 1994). Indeed, infant mortality is low, life expectancy high and end of life is highly
medicalized. Most people die away from their home surroundings within the (bio)medical
complex, leaving the practicalities of caring for dying persons and handling dead bodies
largely unfamiliar to many (Giddens, 1991; Mellor and Schilling, 1993). Nevertheless,
substantive academic challenges and even rebuttals to the death taboo thesis have been
made in the last 30 years (Kellehear, 1984; Lee, 2008). It has been argued that we are in
fact, quite to the contrary, experiencing a ‘revival of death’ (Walter, 1994). Despite this, the
theory of the death taboo is still widely held (Tradii and Robert, 2017). How can we under-
stand this apparent disconnect between the death-positive discourse and pervasive argu-
ments of social scientific research?
Francis (2019: 91) suggests the very success of the death awareness movement and
the canonization of its attendant works, which propagated the death denial thesis, might
be at the root of this. Moreover, the deployment of the death taboo is essential because of
the ideological potential that it holds (Tradii and Robert, 2017). The death awareness
movement of the 1970s was part of a broader social critique whereby modern society
was denounced as being dehumanizing, mechanized and profit-oriented (Lofland, 1978).
Like general critiques of modernity, the narrative of taboo and denial mourns the loss of
pre-modern symbolic structures and enlists nostalgia. Lee (2008) has argued that the
death taboo can be construed as a figure of disenchantment intended to demarcate the
boundaries of the everyday. As such, he sees the emergence of a new context where
‘death is considered enlightening rather than morbid’ as an effort of re-enchantment and
therefore as a rebellion against rationalistic modernity (Lee, 2008: 748, 750). Moreover,
as others have previously remarked, the death-positive discourse can self-perpetuate
only by asserting that against which it claims to struggle. Despite the stated goal of
breaking the taboo on death therefore, this very discourse needs death to be denied in
order to be effective (Lofland, 1978: 88–9; Tradii and Robert, 2017: 10; Zimmerman,
2007: 310).

Initiatives of the death positivity movement

As stipulated, there is no fixed demarcation for which activities, organizations or initia-
tives are included within death positivity, thus people might reasonably disagree on
whether something fits under this umbrella or not. Caitlin Doughty, founder of Order of
the Good Death, was the first to coin the term ‘death positive’ and uses the designation
frequently to talk about this initiative (Order of the Good Death, 2020). Order of the
Good Death, or the Order for short, is a multifaceted organization that defines itself as a
group of funeral industry professionals, academics and artists who work to explore new
ways to engage with death and dying. Indeed, according to the Order, it is this very
organization, which has ‘grown into the Death Positive movement’ (Order of the Good
Death, 2020). The Order has a death positivity manifesto, provides information about
funeral and disposition options, and communicates through a range of media, including
informational videos. It also has an associated Etsy shop where supporters can purchase
death (positivity) themed clothing and merchandise. Doughty is the main figurehead of
Order of the Good Death. She is a mortician and has published books on the topic of
mortuary work and international death rituals. She is the face of the informational videos
6 International Journal of Cultural Studies 00(0)

put out by the organization, under the heading ‘Ask a Mortician’. Other visible members
include director of the Order and death activist, Sarah Chavez, and content researcher
and producer, Louise Hung. The three women also create and host the associated podcast
‘Death in the Afternoon’. Closely associated with this is Death Salon, described as ‘the
practical arm of the Order of the Good Death’ (Order of the Good Death, 2020). Death
Salon organizes salon-style gatherings for ‘intellectuals and free thinkers’ (Death Salon,
2019) featuring death-themed talks, performances and foods (Francis, 2019: 88).
Another initiative which I include under the umbrella of death positivity is Death
Café, an international social franchise originating in England in 2011. Building on the
Swiss ‘Café Mortel’ (Crettaz, 2010), its founder Jon Underwood designed Death Café to
be a pop-up initiative whereby people – mostly strangers to one another – gather in a café
setting to talk about death and dying over tea and cake without any predetermined script
(Impermanence, 2011). Death Café has grown to become a global phenomenon and is
arguably one of the most widely reaching death-positive initiatives today, existing in
over 60 countries (Richards et al., 2020).
A similar premise to Death Café is found in Death Over Dinner. This began as a
graduate course at the University of Washington in 2013 taught by Michael Hebb and
Scott Macklin. It then developed into a website and the current Death Over Dinner initia-
tive was launched in 2014 (Death Over Dinner, 2020). The premise of Death Over Dinner
is to gather people together over an evening meal to discuss death and dying, and it has
been organized in more than 20 countries. Death Over Dinner’s website offers a step-by-
step guide for hosts, which includes themed content sent by email to all dinner partici-
pants in preparation for the event, concerning the particular facet of death and dying
which the host wishes to discuss. Founder Michael Hebb hosts an associated podcast and
he published a book about the initiative’s history and rationale in 2018 (Hebb, 2018).
I also include various initiatives to encourage planning for end of life, writing living
wills and advance directives under the heading of death positivity, as well as ‘Coffin
clubs’ where people meet to fashion their own coffins for future use and the advancement
of new funeral and disposition practices (Leland, 2018). Relatedly, there is increased
interest in and formalization of death doula activities (Rawlings et al., 2018). Furthermore,
a growing body of work is emerging from the medical world, wherein clinicians combine
professional knowledge and personal experience to advocate for a different approach to
dying (Clarke, 2020; Gawande, 2014; Kalanithi, 2016; Mannix, 2017). There is also a
plethora of practically oriented books on how to deal with and talk about end of life and
death (Kortes-Miller, 2018; Miller and Berger, 2019; Morris, 2004; Tisdale, 2018). This
literature may not consistently position itself within death positivity. However, I would
argue that not only do they embody the expressive thanatological niche, crucially they all
uphold the notion that death and dying are ‘dangerous’ and taboo subjects – exemplified
by the recurring subtitle that ‘talking about death won’t kill you’ – and that overcoming
this is necessary in the service of individual development and growth.

The benefits of engaging with death and dying

Indeed, growth and betterment are, as I have signalled, key aspects of death positivity.
All the above-mentioned initiatives encourage engagement with death and dying.
Koksvik 7

However, they do so for slightly different reasons. The promoted positive effects of
engagement can be individual and psychological, as expressed by the motto of Death
Café: ‘Our aim is to increase awareness of death with the hope of helping people make
the most of their (finite) lives’ (Impermanence, 2011). Similarly, subscribers to the app
‘We Croak’ receive five daily reminders of their mortality with the intention to help them
‘Find happiness by contemplating your mortality’ (We Croak, 2019). The benefits can
also be a mixture of individual growth and societal change, as expressed by English
retired palliative care physician Kathryn Mannix in With the End in Mind: ‘I hope you
will be less afraid, and more inclined to plan for and discuss dying. I wrote this book
because I hope we can all live better, as well as die better, with the end in mind’ (2017: 6).
Furthermore, it is commonly held that getting rid of death denial will help offset exces-
sive treatments in medical care (Hebb, 2018; Mannix, 2017; Zimmerman, 2007: 305) as
well as unburden family members who will not have to make difficult or emotionally
charged decisions: ‘Sort your paperwork, make plans, leave instructions, tell your story.
Save your loved ones the trouble and stress’ (Final Fling, 2020).
As previously indicated, the stakes of these activities are increased in the context of
the death taboo thesis and narrative of death denial. Indeed, in a recently conducted
study with organizers of Death Café globally, we found that challenging a societal death
taboo was a motivational element for many people who get involved with the initiative
(Richards et al., 2020). The manifesto for Order of the Good Death asserts: ‘I believe
that the culture of silence around death should be broken through discussion, gather-
ings, art, innovation, and scholarship’ (Order of the Good Death, 2020) and the descrip-
tion on the group’s Twitter account reads: ‘Exploring ways to prepare a death phobic
culture for their inevitable mortality’ (Order of the Good Death, 2020). Relatedly, the
Death Salon website states that ‘Death is sanitized and hidden in contemporary culture
to the point of becoming a taboo subject. We aim to subvert this death denial . . .’
(Death Salon, 2019). Mannix’s aforementioned book, where she relays moving vignettes
from three decades of caring for patients facing life-threatening illness and end of life,
has the subtitle ‘Dying, death and wisdom in an age of denial’. In it, she makes explicit
claims that: ‘it has become taboo to mention dying’ (Mannix, 2017: 107), that dying has
been ‘hijacked into hospitals’ and laments that ‘the art of dying has become a forgotten
wisdom’ (2017: 145).
We see therefore that the death taboo and denial narratives are central to the death-
positive rhetoric against which the purported benefits of their activities are positioned.
The backdrop of taboo and denial likely enhances group identity and frames participa-
tion in death-positive initiatives as bold and transgressive. Indeed, set against a main-
tained narrative of societal denial and death taboo, death positivity’s mission to increase
talk about and engagement with death positions them in opposition to stated oppressive
societal norms. Thus, the Death Over Dinner initiative calls for facing our mortality
through what Michael Hebb (2018: 13) deems will have to be a ‘gentle revolution’. More
explicitly yet, Caitlin Doughty asserts in one of the group’s videos that the Order of the
Good Death and their members are indeed ‘soldiers in the death revolution’ (Ask a
Mortician, 2019).
We find this further illustrated in one of the Order of the Good Death’s videos entitled
‘Overcoming death denial in your family’ (Ask a Mortician, 2018b). The video is
8 International Journal of Cultural Studies 00(0)

designed to encourage people to talk openly about their concerns with end of life and
death with their families. Specifically, the holidays are raised as an opportune time to
have important end-of-life conversations with loved ones. Nevertheless, the viewer is
warned to expect resistance. Indeed, as evidenced by the title, the viewer’s family is
assumed to be in denial. The video shows Doughty sitting at a dinner table as she enacts
a role-play between herself, the death-denying middle-aged mother and the death-phobic
father. She lays out ways to ‘crack the death denial seal to find the death aware person
you know is inside’. Some of the most common deflections to avoid death-related talk
are gone through and Doughty gives some tips on how to ease into otherwise difficult
conversations. Despite this, however, the death-positive viewer is warned once again at
the end that it will not be easy:

The holidays can be brutal. But talking about death doesn’t have to be. Though it probably will
be. Spoiler! Buckle up! (Ask a Mortician, 2018b)

Similar cautions are set out by Death Over Dinner. Speaking to potential new organizers
Michael Hebb (2018: 22) writes: ‘You cannot make someone talk about death if they’re
not ready. It won’t go well. It just won’t . . .’ and people wanting to engage in the initia-
tive and organize their own dinners with people they know must expect ‘prickliness’ and
difficulty.
Thus, death positives are warned that they will face inevitable resistance and, it would
seem, uncomfortable situations. Simultaneously however, the discourse makes it clear
that they are in the right: as we shall see, any reluctance encountered can be understood
as people not yet having arrived at this evolutionary stage.

Death positivity is for everyone

Simply put, death positivity is premised on an ethos, which is not universally shared.
Nevertheless, an unquestioned assumption of being in the right is pervasive within its
discourse. Indeed, as Walter (1994) has noted, it is a tendency within revivalist engage-
ments with death and dying to present their accounts as universally relevant. In one video
by ‘Ask a Mortician’, Order of the Good Death emphasizes the importance of tolerance
for different opinions, explaining to its supporters that part of being death positive means
respecting that it is harder for certain others to be death positive. Examples provided of
people for whom this may be the case are people who are poor, or who are dealing with
violent or sudden death. For them, Doughty, on behalf of the initiative explains, certain
select aspects of death positivity, such as those relating to funeral rights and cost-effec-
tiveness might be most of use (Ask a Mortician, 2018a). Consequently, although subtly,
however the point is iterated that death positivity is the correct destination for everyone:
it simply is more difficult – but not less attractive or right – for certain people to arrive
there. Likewise, Let’s Talk about Death (Over Dinner) (Hebb, 2018) contains numerous
unqualified references to ‘our culture’, ‘we’ and ‘us’. Yet, despite brief mentions of
Hinduism and Islam, and a somewhat more elaborate engagement with Judaism, the
book does not go into the demographic diversity of North America or the USA in any
particular detail, and ‘our culture’ is most easily interpreted as referring to a particular
Koksvik 9

Anglo-Saxon North American middle class. Indeed, despite presenting different disposi-
tion practices and talking about both what might be termed various ‘alternative’ healing
activities as well as biomedicine, the book’s message is at times deeply prescriptive. An
illustration of this can be found in Hebb’s reference to the theories of psychologists
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Their research, which shows that humans tend not
to make rational decisions but are influenced by bias and prejudice, Hebb argues, sheds
‘powerful light on why we don’t talk’:

From them we can learn why we continue to avoid topics like death . . . why 100 percent of us
aren’t organ donors, and why we don’t all have living wills, health proxies assigned, DNRs
filed, and a cemetery plot paid for and waiting for us. (2018: 98)

In this sweeping statement, Hebb dismisses any avoidance toward talking about death as
irrational. This ignores the diverse socioeconomic, ethnic, religious and cultural realities
of the United States (and the West more broadly) as irrationality and bias are posited as
the reason why not all persons are organ donors and why not all persons have a pur-
chased and paid for a cemetery plot. This seems both ethically and empirically problem-
atic. As Francis (2019: 95) argues, many of the values hailed by death positivity are
deeply culturally embedded, and may resonate especially strongly with affluent white
people in North America. Similar criticisms have also been levied against contemporary
academic interest in death and dying, which has been said to display a significant class
bias (Conway, 2013). Indeed, as some have argued, rather than analysing class through
engagements with distributions of power or structural inequalities, class relations are by
and large aestheticized in academia and the media alike, a process in which middle-class
dispositions, behaviours and tastes become presented as the ideal, the norm and, as such,
incontestable (Conway, 2013; Lawler, 2005). The assumption in such representations of
lifestyle, including what pertains to death and dying, is that if the same elements are not
present and the guiding schema in other environments – whether ethnic, socioeconomic
or cultural, this is simply a question of time (Conway, 2013: 333).
Moreover, blaming bad deaths, the absence of open expressivity and a lack of disposi-
tion arrangements on irrationality and bias, articulates these as psychological rather than
systemic problems, which must therefore, essentially be handled by individuals them-
selves. This psychologization further evidences the neoliberal character of death positiv-
ity and the alignment of its rhetoric with the notion of individual responsibilization to
create biographical solutions to systemically created problems, as articulated by Bauman
(2002). We see, therefore, that being death positive is not only the ‘rational’ thing to do
but it is articulated as something which should become part of a person’s self-reflexive
identity project.

Death positivity as a continuous activity

Death positivity is depicted as a lifestyle engagement. In the words of its figureheads, it
is not something to be engaged with on a casual basis. Rather, this ought to be part of the
individual’s continuous reflexive identity formation. Hebb (2018) makes numerous ref-
erences to healing or self-development retreats that the author himself and others have
10 International Journal of Cultural Studies 00(0)

attended. Indeed, he states at the very beginning of the book that he is fascinated by the
amount of time, energy, and money people spend focused on self-improvement in life,
including therapy, meditation and self-improvement courses:

We’re a culture obsessed with transformation, and yet we fail to recognize that all transformation
includes death and rebirth.. . . In all our striving, we fail to bring death into the conversation,
and yet our mortality is the fulcrum of all personal transformation. We don’t think about
improving our lives in the context of death, and we don’t talk about improving our deaths.
(Hebb, 2018: 5)

Here we observe an affiliation with what Rainsborough (2011) terms a culture of trans-
formations. Indeed, rather than challenge the obsession with transformation that he
observes in society, Hebb explicitly wants to add death and dying to the list of experi-
ences for and through which we may practice our becoming. The imperative to engage
with death continuously in order to manage it correctly is also present in Order of the
Good Death. In a video from 16 June 2016 entitled ‘Facing your death’, Doughty tells
the viewer:

It’s kind of paradoxical, because you think that to not fear death the best thing to do would be
to lock it up tight in the recesses of your mind where you also keep your pain, your sadness, and
your regret. You just lock it up in there and you’re fine. You’re fine! You’re just so happy! (Ask
a Mortician, 2016)

Her voice drips with sarcasm as she continues: ‘Au contraire, mon frère’, wagging her
finger. Instead, Doughty proposes, the best way to have less fear around dying is to think
about what you want done with your dead body: ‘I mean actually deeply meditating on the
thought.’ She explains her own views and preferences, and says that others will think dif-
ferently about it: ‘And that’s fine. Your feelings are real and valid. But you do have to go
there’ (Ask a Mortician, 2016). Similarly, on 15 June, 2018, Doughty welcomes the view-
ers to go through the ‘7 habits of highly effective death positive people’, spinning off the
bestselling self-help book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey, 1989). One
such habit, Doughty suggests, is to treat death positivity as exercise. Just like one cannot
to the gym once a year and expect to reap lasting rewards, so must death be ‘exercised’
regularly. ‘One does not simply write an advance directive’, she states, continuing:

Or have one end of life conversation with your mom. Or, tell one person you want to be
cremated. And all of a sudden, you and death are all good forever. It’s an ongoing process. Your
relationship to death will always be changing. So even though it’s hard, you have to be
consistently checking in. (Ask a Mortician, 2018a)

Supporters of Order of the Good Death are encouraged to view their patronage of the
organization as one of their monthly subscriptions, ‘like Deathflix, Corpsify or iMortal’
(Ask a Mortician, 2019) – playing on the popular content streaming services Netflix,
Spotify and iTunes.
Achieving the correct relationship to one’s mortality therefore, as these initiatives
argue it, is not a question of making certain ‘one-off’ choices such as writing a living will
Koksvik 11

or advance directive – although, as we have seen, this is also expected. Rather, it must be
a practised, reflexive and continuous process, which includes introspection, expression
as well as engagement in the consumption of services. The same is expressed by sociolo-
gist Jack Fong (2017) in his monograph analysing a cluster of Death Cafés in California
(USA). Throughout his work, Fong’s admiration of the Death Café initiative is uncon-
cealed. He writes that attendees of these cafés seek ‘a deeper rendering and personaliza-
tion of their mortality. They are in the process of reassembling and personalizing their
own narratives on living and dying’, and that they ‘confront their mortality in ways that
can inform others of a nascent death identity’, which encourages a ‘self-authoring of
one’s own mortality’ (Fong, 2017: 4–5). In Fong’s own words, his work makes visible
‘how café participants communicatively engage the market, media, and medicine’s ren-
dering of death, unfettered from institutional control’ (Fong, 2017: 4). Indeed, Fong is
speaking as an insider of the movement. This ignores the potential subjectivizing fea-
tures of such engagement and how ‘self-authoring’ may well be interpreted as a form of
control. In the words of Árnason and Halfsteinsson (2003: 59):

to describe the postmodern revival of death as the effects of ordinary people to express their
emotions freely, is not only to naturalize the need for emotional expression but misses sight of
the effects of neo-liberal governmentality.

In brief, this overlooks the ways in which power does not necessarily take the shape of
explicit force or constraint exercised by an outside agent, but may, as theorists focusing
on individual responsibilization have argued, be enacted by individuals themselves onto
themselves. The focus on self-authoring moreover, alludes to another important feature
of death positivity, namely authority and the entrepreneurial self.

Death entrepreneurs and authority

According to Rose (1990: 150), the responsibilization of the self implies a philosophy
that the self can achieve a better and happier life through the application of scientific
knowledge and professional skill. In their analysis of the British bereavement-counsel-
ling organization, Cruse, Árnason and Halfsteinsson (2003) show how authority and
individualism may be combined in such ‘death revivalist’ practices, whereby the ‘expert’
counsellor understands their position primarily as a guide, aiding the bereaved individual
to discover and assume their own truth and singularly correct way of grieving. Moreover,
it has been argued that postmodernity implies a double coding, where modern rational-
ism and reliance on expertise and scientific authority mixes with traditional knowledge
(perceived and reimagined) and re-enchanted resources in ways that are not necessarily
internally coherent (Fortuin et al., 2016; Walter, 1994). As we saw earlier, the death
awareness movement of the 1970s drew heavily upon broader general humanistic coun-
terculture and anti-rationalist tendencies at the time (Lofland, 1978), and on ideals of
‘natural’ dying and personal choice (Francis, 2019). In line with this, I would add to
Rose’s analysis that the ‘professional skill and scientific knowledge’ (1990: 150) of
which he speaks, may today be replaced or complemented with (re)enchanted resources
as articulated in the expressive thanatological niche. A good illustration of this is the
12 International Journal of Cultural Studies 00(0)

surge in interest in death doula activities, as previously mentioned. Death doulas are
advocates engaged to provide emotional and spiritual support at end of life, co-construct-
ing a client’s particular vision of a good death or disposition (Francis 2019: 90; Rawlings
et al., 2018). Commonly, the death doula’s role is understood to bring back humanistic
elements of end of life and dying which have ostensibly gotten lost through bureaucrati-
zation, medicalization and the death taboo, and the role may have clear spiritual over-
tones. It may also be interpreted as a personalized dying experience, extending
expressions of personal identity and development until the very last moment, illustrating
Walter’s (1994) notion of dying ‘my way’. At the same time, doula activities are increas-
ingly commodified: many charge for their services and there are ongoing efforts to for-
malize education and gain recognition of doulas as licensed professionals (Francis,
2019).
The figureheads of death positivity correspond to Walter’s thesis of death revival, not
least in the deliberate connotations of his chosen concept with that of religious revival-
ism. Indeed, according to Walter (1994), revivalism implies not only dusting off old
dogmas but also ushering in new ones by way of charismatic advocates. As self-pro-
claimed revolutionaries, death-positive advocates often adopt a distinctly oppositional
tone through which their activities are positioned not simply as worthwhile but as noble,
possessing a moral high ground. Moreover, as we have seen, there is an oscillation
between assertions on the one hand that death and dying should be naturalized and that
conversations about it should be open and candid, and, on the other hand, emphasizing
the dangers of getting involved and portraying the topic as something requiring exper-
tise. Here, a newfound authority emerges, namely that of the death entrepreneur.
Although this may be someone with professional expertise, such as a mortician or a
researcher, authority relies in equal measure on non-intellectual qualities related with
their own persona. Order of the Good Death has a clear aesthetic profile and their video
content relies heavily on Doughty’s charisma and particular use of humour and sarcasm
(Zibaite, 2020). This is also an integral part of death-positive books emerging from the
medical world wherein the author employs the authority entrusted to them due to their
education and knowledge as physicians to supplement or legitimize individual argu-
ments and reflections, relying in equal measure on their persona, personal experiences
and emotions. Yet this reliance on persona for authority and legitimacy is particularly
poignant in the book Let’s Talk about Death (Over Dinner) (Hebb, 2018). Indeed, the
stated objective of the book is to introduce the Death Over Dinner initiative and provide
the readership with an entry point into talking about death and dying and to investigate
why ‘we don’t discuss our mortality’ (Hebb, 2018: 176). As we have seen, Hebb refers
to external sources to back up certain points. Yet the book is just as much a showcase
for its author and reads as a mixture between public education and personal memoir.
There are copious renditions of Hebb’s own life experiences, in particular an exposition
of his tumultuous childhood and his fraught and unsatisfactory relationship with his
mother. In the introductory chapter, Hebb relays a vignette the purported aim of which
is to illustrate how, when talking about death and dying, different populations may need
to be approached differently. In the vignette, Hebb is talking to a distinctly unresponsive
crowd. He writes:
Koksvik 13

As a child I needed to use charm and connection to get noticed and receive love. There was too
much drama in our house for it to be offered up without having to work for it. And the love I
didn’t get at home, I figured out how to get at school. I made sure my teachers loved me and
that I was the center of the most popular students while at the same time being liked by the
outcasts. I loved being liked – I still do. (Hebb, 2018: 19)

Thus, rather than putting the focus on the cultural and linguistic differences which are
stated to be at the heart of such differences in receptivity, the point becomes about the
speaker himself. Later in the text, Hebb relays how while attending a ‘men’s class’, he is
tasked with making a list of women whom he has wronged, to call and apologize to. He
decides that calling either of the mothers of his children would complicate ongoing cus-
tody and parenting problems, adding with a measure of self-deprecation: ‘yes, there are
two different mothers’ (Hebb, 2018: 92). Rather, therefore, he chooses to call his own
mother to inform her that she can count on him to be by her side in the last months of her
life. His mother appreciates the call and his courage and, in a move, which Hebb describes
as magical, she apologizes: ‘She took full ownership for the distance between us and
apologized for neglecting me as a child’ (2018: 92). Death, Hebb writes, became a way
for them to come together (2018: 93).
By exposing personal and painful experiences, Hebb engages in the neoliberal prac-
tice of public expression of intimate troubles for validation. This engagement in ‘shar-
ing’ works also to create a sense of community or even intimacy with the reader. This
willingness to be open and ostensibly vulnerable moreover is what positions him as dis-
tinctly qualified to make the statements that he does throughout the book. Indeed,
throughout the text it emerges, on the one hand that the author’s fraught life enables him
to do the work that he does well. And, conversely, that the work of dealing with death and
dying itself helps him to better deal with – and remedy – his fraught life.

Concluding remarks
Death positivity promotes societal and individual benefits and improvement through
increased talk about and engagement with death and dying. The movement gains its
legitimacy above all from reference to the culturally entrenched narrative of a death
taboo or denial, according to which ‘Western’ cultures entertain a deeply flawed relation-
ship with death and dying, which is plagued by oppressive silence, a lack of familiarity
and an unwillingness to engage. The ideological importance of this narrative is high-
lighted by a disregard for alternative cultural interpretations offered by researchers and
academics over the last thirty years as well as by the sweeping assumptions of Western
cultural homogeneity. Defining their activities as beneficial and in opposition to a repres-
sive status quo, promoters of death positivity assume a moral high ground and the move-
ment positions itself as liberating.
Contrary to this, I have attempted to show how death positivity and its attendant dis-
courses are a fully fledged part of the postmodern repertoire of lifestyles, through which
individuals are encouraged to practise self-reflexive identity formation. Order of the
Good Death offers a full lifestyle package, with multimedia informational content and
branded merchandise through which death positivity can be consumed as a service akin
14 International Journal of Cultural Studies 00(0)

to online content streaming subscriptions. Adherents are admonished to resist casual

engagement and told to treat death positivity as ‘exercise’, indicating more substantive
rewards for increased engagement. Death Over Dinner, as represented by Michael Hebb,
is explicit in its alignment with a postmodern culture of transformation into which this
movement wishes to include death and dying. Death-positive discourses are predicated
on a blanket assumption of the universal validity and correctness of a particular and cul-
turally embedded ethos, which ignores cultural, ethnic, religious and socioeconomic
diversity. Taking the view that change must take place at the level of institutions, not just
individuals; Francis (2019: 97) concludes her epilogue to Lofland’s work by asking how
the death-positive movement might engage more holistically with policy decisions. This
is a valid question. Yet I would argue that what the general death-positive discourse, and
that of the Order of the Good Death and Death Over Dinner in particular evidences, runs
deeper than simply focusing too little on systemic action. To the contrary, death positivity
actively positions itself within and is a vigorous agent of the agenda of neoliberal govern-
ance through individual responsibilization. I argue therefore, that any lack of systemic
action in death positivity is not a sin by omission or unfortunate oversight. Rather, it is a
feature of its design as death positivity and its attendant discourses further the subject
responsibilizing tendencies of neoliberal governance.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the anonymous peer reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments and to the
University of Glasgow’s ‘End of Life Studies Group’, of which I was part when developing this
manuscript. Thanks also to Solveiga Zibaite for our many discussions about death positivity and to
Amy Shea for comments on an earlier version of the article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

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Koksvik 17

Author biography
Gitte Koksvik is a social anthropologist and philosopher. She is an affiliate researcher of the
University of Glasgow End of Life Studies group and works as researcher in Applied Ethics in the
Department of Philosophy and Religious studies at the Norwegian University of Science and
Technology (NTNU). Her research interests include medical anthropology, applied ethics, govern-
ance and death studies. She has conducted ethnographic research in adult intensive care, investi-
gating the topics of good death in a high-tech setting, personhood, dignity and non-treatment deci-
sions. She has also conducted research on the relationship between palliative care and assisted
dying, and on the global transfer and translation of the Death Café initiative.