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Long Abstract
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For many societies worldwide, social security is one of the most pressing issues to be addressed. If
states have few social benefits to offer, individuals must make own provisions for times of crisis.
Rather than relying exclusively on informal ways of support, new possibilities have been sought
which allow for maintaining familial obligations and social norms without threatening individual
economic achievement. However, some forms of social security have been so successful that they
have been adopted in diaspora communities in host countries with very sophisticated social security
systems.
Caring for the future entails the care for the life of the living as well as for the afterlife of the dead.
Funerals are figuring among the most elaborate and costly social events of a family or community
consuming large amounts of financial and material resources. Some diaspora communities are also
faced with the high costs of repatriation of bodies of the deceased. In order to cover the expenses,
new forms of safeguarding have been accessed or creatively been developed. Among them are
rotating credit associations, funeral and life insurances, and the negotiation of "death benefits" as
part of work contracts. Getting engaged in one of the "caring units" are locals as well as external
family members and international diaspora communities.
This panel wants to discuss the creative ways in which people deal with the challenges they face due
to the high cost of caring for the afterlife. We invite papers that focus either on forms of social
security, on funerals, and /or care for the afterlife.
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