Ethnos

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When Biographies Cross Necrographies: The

Exchange of ‘Affinity’ in Cuba

Anastasios Panagiotopoulos

To cite this article: Anastasios Panagiotopoulos (2016): When Biographies

Cross Necrographies: The Exchange of ‘Affinity’ in Cuba, Ethnos, DOI:
10.1080/00141844.2015.1120763

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 When Biographies Cross Necrographies:
The Exchange of ‘Affinity’ in Cuba

Anastasios Panagiotopoulos
CRIA-Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
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abstract In Cuba one might encounter a lively exchange occurring between the living
and the dead (los muertos), one which is often described in terms of ‘affinity’. This
involves a reciprocity among the biographies of the former, the past (biographies)
and present condition (‘necrography’) of the latter, who are not in the least limited
to ancestors or previously intimate to the living persons. The intensification of such
exchange takes place within a dynamic and multiple field of identifications and differ-
entiations, wherein the dead slowly become dead in a parallel process of un-becoming
living, through becoming ‘affinity’ muertos of their living counterparts. This could be
said to be the point of what is going on, but things, when they get so radically mobilised
through exchange, might also go beyond the point of conclusion.

keywords Cuba, death, exchange, biography, divination

Behind what seems to be an uncompleted culture, there is in fact a systematic corpus

of thought and emotion constantly modelling itself out of death. (James Figarola
2008: 36)

The Others
Today I am visiting Fernando, with whom I am supposed to talk about his
experiences in Afro-Cuban divination. Upon knocking on the door of his apart-
ment, Lucia, his wife, opens and welcomes me in: ‘Fernando is coming, have a
seat. Do you want coffee?’ I reply positively and sit on a very uncomfortable
armchair in the small living room. On the sofa are seated three children who
greet me somewhat indifferently and continue watching the loud TV. Lucia

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1– 25), [Link]

# 2016 Taylor & Francis
 2 anastasios panagiotopoulos

serves me the typical black and sweet Cuban coffee and sits on a stool. Exchan-
ging a few conventional words, I soon realise that Lucia is as much absorbed in
what is on the TV as her children. They are watching a film I recognise, ‘The
Others’ (directed by Alejandro Amenábar in 2001); set in an isolated mansion
and depicting a nightmarish realisation of the protagonists – a mother
(Nicole Kidman) with her two children – of being dead, although not aware
of it and acting as if they were alive until the end. Lucia interrupts their silent
devotion: ‘This is why we, the living, play such an important part in making
the dead realize their condition; you cannot imagine how many times I have
experienced similar situations. If you don’t grant them acknowledgement
they wander in despair and provoke mischief.’ Her words come out with no
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intention to provoke any deep existential discussion about life and death and
are not explicitly directed at any one of us present. They float in the room as
a factual and mundane comment would do, not awaiting any response; and
so it happens. We all keep on watching ‘The Others’ slowly realise their
‘otherness’.
All kinds of bondings and assemblages, be they societies or socialities, cul-
tures or subcultures, dividuals or individuals, have their significant others.
Cross-culturally and historically, the dead and death in general have proved
to be a persistent kind of significant Other. This might be because death in
itself is a process of radical othering. One could venture the universalist claim
that humanity holds as a basic intuition or perception that death is a significant
kind of transformation (cf. Kellehear 2007). However strong this intuition may
be, what perplexes things is that there is no universal consensus about where
exactly this transformation leads to, even more so when the living are an integral
part of how this transformation will take place. Typically and starting from
Hertz (2004), death signifies a linear transformation of the familiar into the unfa-
miliar and then back to the familiar (see Seremetakis 1991: 12 – 15, 47 – 48; Course
2007; Tsintjilonis 2007). That familiarity is the starting point is evident in the
predominance of the kinship ties that are severely affected by death. If death
is a transformation, the centre of attention becomes how the living
and the dead related in kinship terms may renegotiate, most often through
(post-)burial and mourning practices, their pre-established and now shaken
intimacies (see Rosenblatt et al. 1976).
The anthropological archetype of the dead has been the kinfolk; death and
the subsequent practices and rites transforming them into de-individuated or
culturally and psychologically adequately confronted ancestors (see Palgi &
Abramovich 1984; Metcalf & Huntington 1991; Kan 1992; Bloch & Parry 1996;

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 3

Robben 2004; Kaufman & Morgan 2005). Furthermore, the body of the
deceased and how it is handled play a very central role, while an unexpected
destruction or absence of it becomes highly problematic and traumatic (see
Merridale 2000; De Boeck 2005; Cassia 2006). Perhaps the second most predo-
minant category of the deceased to appear in the ethnographic record is the
‘famous’ or, even, ‘infamous’, that is, those people who due to their social stand-
ing, ideas and deeds (including the circumstances of their death) enjoy a repu-
tation wider than the more restricted reach of kinship and enter a wider field of
politics or collective representations (see Verdery 1999; Lomnitz 2008; Kalusa &
Vaughan 2013). Thus, whether kinfolk or not, the most recurrent significant
others-as-dead are those who used to be significant others while in life; or, at
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least, became significant others in their very death. If we almost always start
from a certain kind of familiarity, then it is likely that our understandings of
death will tend to be filtered through these categories. For instance, Harrison
argues that the dead become significant others only in their ‘genealogical, senti-
mental, or institutional relation to the surviving’ (2003: 93).
In Cuba there are occasions, quite diffused in some sectors, wherein the
appearance of the dead, los muertos, is not necessarily and directly linked to
either the event, time and place of their death, or their corpse, its treatment
and the grieving process and the intense affective expression that often accom-
panies it (see Danforth 1982; Rosaldo 1984). Equally so, the identities of the
deceased are not exhausted in the realm of kinship or other familiarities. Yet,
as the present ethnography will show, the relations forged between these
muertos and the living are ones of vivid reciprocity. One common term that
describes and qualifies such relations is that of ‘affinity’ (afinidad).
Non-kinfolk, even completely unknown personages, often forms part of one’s
‘affinity’ muertos without the quality of ‘affinity’ being compromised. Reversing
Harrison and the absolute monopolising ethnographic norm in the literature,
the present ethnography of the dead is not dependent on the genealogical, senti-
mental or institutional relations that exist prior to or, at least, are formed with
the event of death.
The broad aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, through the ethnography of
the muertos and their unfolding biographies, what I call ‘necrographies’, I intend
to embark upon a descriptive and analytical path that so far has remained
largely untrodden, wherein the phenomenon of death is not dependent on
the biographies of the dead as the already familiar. The ethnographic and
analytical edge in this case becomes the notion of ‘exchange’, drawing inspi-
ration from Baudrillard (1993), as a counter-perspective on the linearity that

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 4 anastasios panagiotopoulos

has been commonly attributed to death-related phenomena and as an extremely

original and dynamic framework of both identity and alterity; something that
ambitiously and hopefully goes beyond the limits of the muertos as they
appear in this paper. Secondly and on a more sociological level, I try to
explore, rather suggestively, what this ‘necrographic’ distance from kinship
might reveal about Cuban society at large and, in general, about contexts
within and beyond the Caribbean and Latin America where kinship is not
the monopolising archetype of reciprocity between life and death.

The Crossing of Paths

The crossing of paths as a generative instantiation of a kind of destiny that is
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understood not so much as a form of fatalism as it is a breakthrough ( from fatal-

ism) has been a strongly occurring theme in my ethnographic explorations in
Cuba. This is not limited to the realm of Cuban popular religiosity and divina-
tion. Historically, both the ‘discovery’ of Cuba by Columbus in 1492 and the
Revolution in 1959 can be seen as powerful moments of such breakthrough.
The deep and prolonged social, political and economic crisis that was ignited
by the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the advent of the ‘special period’
(periodo especial) in the 1990s has had profound effects upon Cuban life which
are felt up to the present day (see Benzing 2005; Hernández-Reguant 2009).
These negative effects can generally be said to create a sense of desperation
or aimlessness, even dullness. Unable to give detailed examples here, I report
a very diffuse and dominant ‘feeling’ I have been aware of since 2006. Life-
courses, often depicted as ‘paths’ (caminos) in the Cuban-Spanish idiom, suffer
from either a wrong direction or the lack of it, that is, deviation or stagnation.
Cubans are highly conscious of all this. Things ‘stumble’ (tropezar), ‘deviate’
(desviar) or become ‘heavy’ (pesadas) and people constantly find themselves
in a state of ‘struggle’ (lucha) so as to ‘make things walk’ (hacer que las cosas
caminen).
Often things start ‘walking’ or, even, ‘running’ (se echan a correr) when a sig-
nificant encounter occurs at a visit in a house or a public place, in the street and
at other kinds of ‘crossroads’ (cruces) that might be instantiated in the meeting of
(at least) two ‘paths’. Interminably desperate and ever-present bureaucratic
obstacles can surprisingly be overcome by the sudden appearance of the right
acquaintance; a hunch or a dream might give you the winning numbers of
the illegally run lottery; a tourist might buy you a beer, obtain medicines for
your ailing grandmother or even marry you. Cubans are equally fascinated
and nurtured by a dynamic interplay of personal skills, charisma and miraculous

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 5

coincidences. Within such a context, many Cubans are also fascinated by the
appearance of perspectives that are thought to come from muertos. This crossing
of paths between the living and the dead is a relatively widespread phenom-
enon, but it is never an official or conventional practice (see Román 2007),
and it is almost always followed by the adoption of perspectives that shed
fresh light on, and give a direction to, one’s camino. People cross paths with
the dead through crossing paths with those individuals who are able to perceive
them. This crossing is not so much a one-instance occasion for reflection as it is
a whole redirection of one’s ‘path’, a ‘path’ that is nurtured by and nurtures the
paths of the dead (see Ochoa 2010; Espı́rito Santo 2015). ‘Affinity’ between the
living and the dead is, thus, accompanied by the exchange of perspectives with a
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highly oracular quality and which are able to re-establish positive directions to
the previously stagnant or aimless caminos of both the living and the dead.

The ‘Acknowledgement’ of ‘Affinity’: Opening the Path to Exchange

In Cuba and especially Havana, where my research has been based, those
who can ‘sense’ (sentir) the dead are referred to interchangeably as espiritistas,
mediums, videntes (‘clairvoyants’), de larga vista (‘of long sight’) or, less often,
muerteros (most commonly used in the eastern part of the island). The ability
to discern muertos refers most directly not only to the visceral capacity to per-
ceive their presence but also to an apparently distinct skill, that of being able
to perceive things that are deemed otherwise impossible to know. Indeed, in
the broader Cuban society espiritistas may be more famous for the latter
(‘long sight’) than the former ability (to sense muertos). It is very common for
an espiritista to tell you something extremely personal and intimate that you
may or may not have known, or to deliver a warning concerning an imminent
incident. There are other kinds of diviners also reputed for their extraordinary
‘visions’, pertaining to other popular Afro-Cuban religious traditions
(see Holbraad 2012; Palmié 2013; Wirtz 2014; Espı́rito Santo & Panagiotopoulos
2015), such as the babalawos, santeros and paleros of Ocha/Ifá and Palo Monte,
respectively. Espiritistas may be distinguished from these other diviners by
the ability to ‘see’ things more directly and often in more personalised detail,
without necessarily being dependent upon a ceremonial protocol, a ritually
induced spirit possession and the employment of specific objects as oracles
(see Panagiotopoulos 2011; Espı́rito Santo 2013).
Espiritistas, when describing their perceptive abilities, often say that they see
things as if they were watching a ‘film’ (pelicula); or that they hear messages
being whispered or that thoughts and intuitions come to their minds, in

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 6 anastasios panagiotopoulos

wakefulness or sleep. Perceptually, mediums experience a parallel manifestation

of a ‘message’ to be articulated and of something that appears and articulates
itself as a muerto. They also perceive a sense of that muerto ‘belonging’ (pertenecer)
to a specific individual, be that those muertos who belong to themselves or to
others. Very often espiritistas interpret their perceptibility of other people’s
muertos as a capacity and experience that are mobilised through their own
muertos (Espı́rito Santo 2012: 257).
What seems to be the most pressing point in the initial crossing of paths
between a living person and a muerto is the complete reversal of a negative situ-
ation. This is the lack of ‘acknowledgement’ and the very first piece of infor-
mation that comes to light is a recognition of the muerto as a presence. This
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is why mediums almost always describe and stress the appearance of the
muerto; such visual information is within the medium’s perceptive range. ‘It
is being presented to me the image of a . . . ’ (A mi se me presenta el imagen de
. . . ) are very often the opening words of mediums, followed by a description
of facial and bodily features, clothing, and the appearance of objects which
might reveal more biographical information about the deceased. As ‘acknowl-
edgement’ is the initial and pressing need, the information is constitutive of
the muerto’s presence. At these initial stages the information is predominantly
biographical, not so much in its depth and wealth but in its intensity; in its
capacity to break through from a state of non-recognition to its reversal, a
state of recognition. The aim is to give not full and detailed biographies, but
rather traces and hints of a past identity that somehow lingers in the present.
This lingering is said to occur precisely because of the previous lack of
‘acknowledgement’ and, therefore, should be somehow overcome. Unacknow-
ledged muertos find themselves in a liminal state of confusion, aimlessness and
inability to articulate themselves with clarity. Very often mediums describe
such muertos as not aware that they are dead, something which may hapha-
zardly provoke a similar sense of confusion to their living counterpart. The
crossing of ‘paths’ is, thus, often perceived as an initial state of deviation or aim-
lessness which affects both the living and the dead, and a subsequent re-posi-
tioning through the very event of their paths crossing.
If muertos allow biographical (past and embodied) elements to be percep-
tually ‘presented’ to the mediums, this is out of a ‘necrographic’ (present and dis-
embodied) need to be ‘acknowledged’, both to themselves and to the living, as
dead. At the same time, the living receive messages that suggest not only the
presence and specific identity of the muerto, but also those elements that link
the personality and biography of the living with that of the dead. This is

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 7

precisely what ‘affinity’ could be said to condense: a sort of middle ground

wherein ‘paths’ cross and, in doing so, are set in entangled (see Straight 2006)
and directed motion (see Holbraad 2012; esp. pp. 150 – 153; see also Beliso-De
Jesús 2015: 79 – 113).
Emilia is a woman who was in her 60s living on her own at the time I met her
in 2007. Emilia described herself as a medium, able to sense her own muertos and
those of others. Meeting Emilia for the first time, one might get the impression
of an introverted and reserved person. Nevertheless, as I got to know her better
she proved to be very generous and warm, eager to talk about her mediumistic
experiences, the majority of which touched upon highly personal aspects of her
life. Emilia was quite intense in her conversations and she could talk to me lit-
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erally non-stop for hours.

Emilia ‘has’ one muerto whom she calls Mamasita. Once I asked her to tell me
of the first time Mamasita appeared. She said that Mamasita had always been
there, albeit less obviously, since her childhood. As a child, Emilia would get
glimpses of her as an old African woman who would always appear serene.
Instead of being afraid, little Emilia would feel at great ease in her presence.
Nevertheless, she did not say anything to anybody, because her family did
not ‘practice nor understand those things’. It was only when she was a teenager
and happened to be at a friend’s house that her secret was revealed. Her friend’s
mother told her to pay more attention to a spirit of hers, indeed an old African
woman, who would be part of her life and protect her. In order to do so,
however, Emilia would have to start listening to the spirit and her needs. It
was then that Emilia learned the spirit’s name, at least the one she was
known by during her life in Cuba. Mamasita let the mother of Emilia’s friend
know that she was an African-born woman of noble descent. She had been cap-
tured by an enemy tribe and eventually brought as a slave to Cuba. Her royal
upbringing soon distinguished her among the rest of the slaves and she was
swiftly ‘promoted’ to house-servant. On that same day Mamasita also said
that she liked flowers with intense colours and smell, as well as jewellery,
especially silver. She asked Emilia, through the mother, to always have some
flowers in one corner of her bedroom and to occasionally wear jewellery. She
warned Emilia to be careful of a certain member of the family, a female
cousin, who envied her immensely and who could even conduct witchcraft
against her at some point in the future. She also said that Emilia, although
she was a very capable person, was very timid, suppressing her hidden qualities;
that she should start showing more confidence and speak her mind. Emilia
commented that this was precisely Mamasita’s manifestation in her, in the

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 8 anastasios panagiotopoulos

sense that having been a member of royalty in Africa she became a slave in Cuba
and her potential (not only to be free but also to reign) had been suppressed.
Emilia also stressed that by ‘acknowledging’ Mamasita, particularly in relation
to this biographical information, there were two vital effects.
Firstly, Emilia gained an enhanced awareness of her own timidness. Secondly,
this activation of something she had known but not been highly conscious of
allowed Emilia to not only know herself better but also move beyond this char-
acter trait, partially at least. That is, not only was her timid character more clearly
articulated, but she was also able to find a path out of it, so to speak. Emilia linked
the increase in her mediumistic ability to having received the aforementioned
piece of information and subsequently ‘working on it’ (trabajandolo). The latter
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was not only about trying to speak her mind, but also about engaging more
actively with what Mamasita had been at pains to articulate to Emilia and her
own self. The fact that Mamasita was ‘acknowledged’ resulted in Emilia becom-
ing more articulate by ‘working on’ her mediumistic ability. Even if she generally
remained a timid person, her mediumistic articulateness was a temporal but
highly intense breakthrough from such a personality trait. Another important
and interconnected effect was that ‘acknowledgement’ also resulted in Mamasita
being able to articulate herself more clearly. Emilia argued that precisely because
Mamasita had found a way to ‘speak’ through her, she was finally able to over-
come the suppressed condition she found herself in as a slave. This kind of
interpretation by Emilia derived from the fact that Mamasita stopped articulating
so much information about her past life and had instead increasingly conveyed
messages about Emilia’s present life conditions, and about people who needed
Emilia’s help as a medium.
From the moment a muerto appears to be related to a living person through
‘affinity’, a flow of information is brought forward concerning three broad
dimensions: biographical aspects of the living person; biographical aspects of
the deceased while in life and aspects of the present state of the muerto, what
I call ‘necrography’. The ‘acknowledgement’ of ‘affinity’ crucially brings up
these three dimensions as interrelated – partially overlapping and mutually
affecting – phenomena. In that sense, reciprocity becomes intense because
not only do the ‘messages’ that are articulated bring these three dimensions
into dialogue, but the dialogue itself becomes a vehicle of transformations
(cf. Vitebsky 1993).
For instance, Emilia’s timid character was crossed with Mamasita’s condition
as a slave. Two distinct biographies have a common point of reference. But it is
something more than a mere analogy; it is a manifestation and an implication.

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 9

The commonality is instantiated in their very crossing and not in their a priori
similarity. This crossing between Emilia’s timidness and Mamasita’s enslave-
ment undergoes a further transformation. As soon as ‘acknowledgement’
takes place, Emilia finds a way out of timidness, crucially through the develop-
ment of her mediumistic abilities, and Mamasita finds a way out of slavery in the
sense that as a piece of information, as a memory, it never reappears, at least not
as a dominant narrative theme. It is as if Mamasita forgot her enslavement by
way of initially remembering it by reminding Emilia of it. Therefore, the
‘acknowledgement’ of ‘affinity’ seems to be a dynamic process whereby
deceased people attract the attention of the living so as to be able to initiate a
previously blocked and inarticulate process of becoming dead. All this crucially
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involves an initial ‘flash’ of memory of biographical aspects with the ultimate

goal of escaping them so that the muerto is able to de-individuate, disembody
and, thus, reach a fuller state of death-hood. Following Hertz’s (2004) under-
standing of death as not happening at an instant, one could argue that disem-
bodiment too is a transition in potential. A particularly large number of
muertos seem to, phenomenologically and initially at least, come from the
same ‘pool’ of undifferentiated lingering dead. Some finally stand out through
‘affinity’, whereas others linger on in this amorphous mass or ‘sea’ of dead
that surreptitiously saturates the Cuban social landscape (see Ochoa 2007).
Not all muertos are linked to the living by way of ‘affinity’. A medium may
perceive the presence of a muerto who does not ‘belong’ to anyone, who is
somehow lonely, confused and not fully conscious of being dead. Normally,
such muertos are perceived in instances when some kind of misfortune occurs,
either to those who frequent a specific place inhabited by the muerto (a house
or a cemetery) or because the muerto ‘catches’ (coge) a specific individual. In
such cases the medium’s role is to identify such ‘attachments’ (apegos) or inci-
dental crossings of paths and dissolve them, sending the muerto back to its
aimless and inarticulate state, so as to prevent this state being passed on to
the living. Such spirits are often described as ‘wandering’ (vagantes) or ‘dark’
(oscuros). There are also others who are perceived as indeed ‘belonging’ to a
third party, but as a ‘pacted’ with (pactado) and intentionally ‘sent’ (enviado)
muerto rather than an ‘affinity’ muerto. This latter instance often refers to the
nfumbis, spirits of the dead that are handled within the tradition of Palo Monte
(see Espı́rito Santo et al. 2013; Palmié 2002: 159 – 200). In general, whether
‘dark’, ‘wandering’ or ‘sent’, the ability of these muertos to stand out from the
amorphous mass is occasional, usually has negative outcomes and is perceived

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 10 anastasios panagiotopoulos

as poor in its potential to create fuller ‘pictures’ (cuadros), wherein biographies

and necrographies cross, inform, form and transform each other.

‘Materialising’ and ‘Developing’ ‘Affinity’

The previous section focused on the initial generation of the flow of recipro-
city between the dead and the living, and the opening up of the path to
exchange-cum-‘affinity’ by way of ‘acknowledgement’. This section will con-
sider how this flow is further ‘materialised’ (materializarse) and ‘developed’
(desarollarse). Although there are some patterns that are commonly followed,
the ultimate measure and effect of ‘affinity’ is the flourishing of exchange
itself. Everything that affords this flow is, by trial and error and only then by
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definition, the correct kind of ‘materialisation’.

Out of a multitude of ‘materialisations’, I will focus on a predominant one. An
unobstructed flow of exchange with the dead is generated by a balanced degree
of materialisation, whereas an excess of materialisation or its opposite, absolute
dematerialisation, tends to block, ignore or get rid of exchange. One of the
objects that most vividly and uniquely bring the dead into life, so to speak, is
dolls. Dolls in this case are not only sites of intense emotional attachment
and identification (see Robertson 2004), but also active agents of ontological
constitutions and transformations (cf. Schattschneider 2001). Moreover, half
the necrographic ‘game’ consists of identification. As I intend to argue, the
other complementary and necessary half is differentiation and this is where
exchange reveals fully its dynamic potentials.
It is not uncommon to enter a house in Havana and encounter dolls (usually
made of cloth or plastic), sitting in the corner of a sofa, on the floor, on minia-
ture stools or on shelves and other furniture. A hasty look would probably give
the impression of ornaments of a somewhat kitsch-baroque taste or a nostalgic
lingering of childhood. A more engaged observation would reveal that these
dolls are themselves surrounded and adorned by very detailed ornaments,
such as jewellery, a cigar, or playing-cards. They can also be white or black
in colour; they can resemble nuns, gypsies, Arabs, Indians or half-naked
African slaves, and they are very commonly dressed in bright colours (Figure 1).
A ‘thicker’ description would have them as ‘materialisations’ of muertos. The
way they look is linked to the way the spirits of the dead appear to mediums;
visual traces of their past life, as well as habits, likes and desires that still persist
or are newly aroused in their transforming state of being and becoming muertos.
‘Materialisations’ such as dolls are not seen as mere representations of muertos
but as dynamic sites where the muerto recognises itself, manifests itself

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 11

Figure 1 Photograph
taken by the author at
Eduardo and Olga’s
place, to whom I am
deeply indebted both
for letting me publish
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the picture and

generally for welcoming
me into their lives.

through them, cultivates its ‘affinity’ with the living and, ideally, ‘develops’,
‘evolves’ (evoluciona) and ‘acquires light’ (obtiene luz). However, this does not
represent a strictly linear or forced effort to dematerialise.
Here, it is imperative to mention two broad tendencies concerning the attitude
towards the dead among espiritistas in Cuba. One claims a more faithful link to the
origins of Espiritismo as a tradition, traced back to European and North American
Spiritism which flourished in the nineteenth century and drew upon, to a great
extent, the writings of a French pedagogue, known as Allan Kardec (see Espı́rito
Santo 2010). Briefly put, this kind of Spiritism places a highly moral value on the
progressive dematerialisation of spirits. The dead find themselves in a linear kind
of ‘evolution’ in which they dematerialise and obtain light. In Cuba, this approach
is associated with Espiritismo cientı́fico (‘scientific Spiritism’) and its adherents,
quite limited in number, engage not only with already ‘elevated’ spirits but also
in a very dematerialised manner. Direct communication with such beings is
not so evident and, if it occurs at all, it tends to be fairly inconspicuous and
muted. Rather than a high degree of exchange derived from the muertos and
the intimate links created through ‘affinity’, the ‘scientific’ groups gather and pro-
pound universal values of equality, charity, general well-being and morality. Even
if a muerto appears among them, it will most often reflect tenuously on these
values rather than deliver extraordinary, personalised and visceral messages
directed to a specific individual. This latter phenomenon is reserved for the rest
of the espiritistas, who identify themselves as cruzados (‘crossed’) and are much
more popular.

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 12 anastasios panagiotopoulos

Of course, in all of this there is a significant element of moral discourse,

which is linked to notions of materiality. From the ‘scientific’ perspective, the
practices described in this paper are deemed too ‘material’, revealing ‘backward’,
‘ignorant’, ‘immoral’, ‘obscure’, primitive’ and ‘African’ ways of thinking and
acting (see Palmié 2002; Wirtz 2009). Both non- and ‘affinity’ muertos, and
their mediums, are considered to be too material. This is why one could con-
sider Espiritismo cruzado to be part of the Afro-Cuban religious milieu rather
than the Euro-Christian one (Espı́rito Santo 2010). But as Espı́rito Santo
rightly argues, we are dealing with not only a moral economy, but also a percep-
tual and cosmological one: ‘it is only of consequence in an Afro-Cuban religious
context to denominate something as material since it also denotes its capacity to
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be spiritual’ (2010: 66). In other words, what makes the ‘crossed’ espiritistas and
muertos ‘Afro-Cuban’ is not only a morally and externally imposed judgement-
cum-stereotype, but also an internally accepted attitude, which is held with
pride. Espiritistas and muertos are Afro-Cuban in the sense that materialisation
is neither necessarily evil nor backwards. Equally, dematerialisation is not absol-
ute or an imperative moral stance.
What is at stake here is the correct balance between materialisation and
dematerialisation so that ‘affinity’ may flow with ease. To a great extent, the
measure of this is an unobstructed flow of exchange. So, instead of the presence
being a problem (sensu Engelke 2007) and materialisation an impure act (sensu
Latour 2010), the ‘problem’ (if there is any) is to achieve the correct kind of
materialisation and presence in light of their necessary and unproblematic
absence. In this case, the only problematic scenario would be to privilege exces-
sively either one or the other, because that would threaten to block or do away
with exchange; something which occurs much more intensely both to non-affi-
nity or unacknowledged ‘affinity’ muertos and to highly elevated ones. This
interplay between materialisation and dematerialisation is an organic part of a
more general exchange; an exchange that ultimately relates in a fully dynamic
and dialectical way biographies and necrographies, in both their identifications
and differentiations.
Celia, a middle-aged woman who became a good friend of mine, told me
that there were important and immediate effects from ‘preparing’ a doll for
her muerto, Francisca. Francisca increased considerably her appearances,
sharing information, advice and warnings about various issues that concerned
Celia and her immediate environment, ranging from health and finances to
social and family relationships. In general, Francisca augmented her protective
role towards Celia by increasing the quantity and quality of her oracular

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 13

messages. At the same time, the making of the doll had another transformative
effect. Previously, Francisca would appear to Celia in a way that revealed
intensely her past life. For instance, she would appear as an image of a
woman who walked with extreme difficulty due to an ailing left leg. Francisca
had once revealed that she had had an accident while taking a stroll along
Havana’s western coastline, Malecón; that she had tripped over some rocks
and had seriously damaged her left knee. Interestingly, Celia had also devel-
oped from early adulthood a pain in her left knee and, in the absence of a defi-
nite diagnosis, the doctors had called it something like ‘early rheumatism’.
According to Celia, her pains had been progressively worsening up until the
making of the doll. After that the pain swiftly became less intense and more
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bearable. This change was simultaneous with Francisca appearing without a

limp. As Celia said with conviction, this was due to the fact that Francisca
was ‘evolving’ as a spirit and this involved a progressive loss of memory of
her past life, of her biography, at least of things that were not necessary or
pleasant. Celia’s claim is that the doll, as a ‘materialisation’, was crucial to
this evolution.
This is all highly pertinent to what Celia had at various times highlighted as
the importance of the muertos’ ‘development’. Such development is seen not
necessarily as a linear and obligatory effort towards fewer and fewer materiali-
sations. Rather, it is an initial and partial building and reconstruction of the
muerto’s biography, and a subsequent and progressive effort to get away from
it, replacing it (and the memories of it) with a more present- and future-oriented
state of being; the path that lays ahead that intimately brings together the tra-
jectories-cum-destinies of the living and the dead. Muertos start revealing some
of their biographical traces, most often the way they looked while in life, their
physical features, such as ethnic or racial origins, clothes and adornments they
used to wear, their profession, their likes and dislikes and so on. All of these fea-
tures, often in response to the muerto’s request, can be made manifest in the doll
that ‘materialises’ it. Yet, the biographical information is not an end in itself,
since it is never complete or fully pursued by the living. After all, the exchange
with the muertos is praised for its at least partial relevance to the personal situ-
ation of the living. What many of my friends, including Celia, have repeatedly
stressed is that complete identification may lead to the exact opposite, that is,
complete alienation.
Muertos cannot identify completely with their past nor with their living
counterparts. They are said to be entities that ‘evolve’ from (once) living
persons into now (and slowly and with no guaranteed and linear outcomes)

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 14 anastasios panagiotopoulos

deceased ones. Their necrographic condition must be harnessed out of a past

that transforms into something else; they must make use of this past (partially
identifying with it) in order to ultimately differentiate from it. Complete identi-
fication with their past or with the living would alienate them from their direc-
tion of becoming dead. It can also be argued that to become an ‘affinity’ muerto
of a living person is precisely a process of fuller ‘realisation’ on the part of the
muerto that they are no longer the living person they used to be, but are
instead an entity that is other-than-living; and through this ‘realisation’, they
are able to relate to the living by way of ‘affinity’. Celia told me:

The doll is and isn’t the muerto. Francisca is drawn to the doll because she recognizes
herself in it but through it she also recognizes that she is dead. When I made her the
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doll I felt her differently. In the beginning it was as if she was in a state of shock. For
the first time she would feel more dead than ever. Her stress ran through me in the
form of chills and a slight feeling of depression. But as soon as she got used to her
sight as a doll she became at ease. She saw herself as a doll, reminded of her past
but also clear that it was not exactly her. Previously she would manifest herself
only through my body [through spirit possession] and that would make her feel
more like a living person. This is important for a muerto to realize because otherwise
it still lives in the past, as if it was the present, and may take power over you to such an
extent that she becomes you and you her.

Not only are muertos ex-living humans and ex-bodies, but their precarious state
of being is based precisely on what they once were and their partial negation of
it. What they are and what they are transforming into depend on what they
used to be and partially still are, not only as a point of identification but also
as a point of departure and differentiation. As Celia’s words very graphically
describe, the doll simultaneously reflects and deflects the way Francisca used to
look. This is because in its condition of something-like-but-not-exactly her pre-
vious self, it takes Francisca a step further in ‘realising’ and acting like a muerto,
leaving partially aside her embodied memories and stressing her disembodying
condition. In this process, the only thing that is stable as a desire and effort (not
as a state) is ‘affinity’, which is largely measured by and dependent upon the
flow of exchange.
The way exchange-cum-‘affinity’ is put into motion is by an experimental
‘developing’ of ‘partial identifications and partial differentiations’ (see Willerslev
2004) that the various ‘materialisations’ bring about. This necessary and
dynamic counterpoint occurs on three levels, for which the terms of their
relationship and their bringing together become precisely what must also set

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 15

them apart. These three levels are the past life of the muerto (its biography), its
current state (its necrography) and the life-course (biography) of the living
counterpart. Although mutually defined, if conflated and fully identified with
each other or, on the contrary, completely dissociated, exchange becomes
blocked and the crossing of the muerto and the living person becomes either
absent or problematic.
In summary, one could say that in Cuba there are a large number of muertos
that are perceived as lingering on and in need of entering a more definitive
process of becoming dead that was denied to them in the moment of their
death. This seems to have occurred precisely because previously there were
no living individuals who could pay attention to and facilitate such a need.
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One could say, returning to the terms of Harrison which I outlined at the begin-
ning of this paper, that these muertos have remained genealogically, emotionally
and institutionally ‘kin-less’ until ‘affinity’ came to reverse this state of affairs; in
fact ‘affinity’ created a state of affairs to begin with. If unacknowledged muertos
are ‘orphans’ in a liminal position between life and death, ‘affinity’ becomes a
sort of ‘adoption’ (cf. Harrison 2003: 90 – 105) so that the full transition to
death, in the classical Hertzian sense, is consummated. One could expect,
thus, that after ‘affinity’ has been granted recognition and further cultivated,
muertos should at some point fully disembody and vanish, at least in their pre-
vious visceral intensity.
In other words, if the Cuban necrographic case is somewhat of an ‘anomaly’
in which muertos are ‘orphans’, with the advent of the ‘acknowledgement’ and
‘development’ of ‘affinity’ things would be expected to ‘walk’ towards the
path of resolution, the dead taking their place to the higher and less individu-
ated levels of Cuban ancestry. Is this not the point of gradually losing their bio-
graphy and the memories of it? The fact is that the vast majority of ‘affinity’
muertos and their living counterparts that I have met have never radically dis-
joined. Nor have I ever heard of muertos transcending to such an extent that ‘affi-
nity’ dissolved into a past memory. Even in cases where a muerto was somehow
put aside, this, according to the explanations of the people I encountered in
Cuba, was due to other muertos becoming more prominent at that particular
phase or the living ceasing to care too much about them. It was never posed
as a matter of a higher transcendence taking place. Whether this is absolutely
representative of the whole necrographic phenomenon of Cuba I cannot say
definitively, but it is true that a large number of ‘affinity’ muertos do stick
around. What could possibly account for such a dismissal of the initial sugges-
tion that ‘affinity’ would eventually set them free from this world?

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 16 anastasios panagiotopoulos

Beyond the Point of Conclusion . . . Or Forgetting to Remember to Forget

Let us sum up, aphoristically, the whole process of becoming dead that the
ethnography presented here suggests and try to engage with the question just
posed. Becoming dead is not automatic and instantaneous, but a transition (a
la Hertz), relying heavily on those who are left behind. In order to become
dead, a person must forget and be forgotten. In order to forget and be forgotten,
the person must first remember and be remembered (cf. Taylor 1993; Conklin
2001; Williams 2003; Vitebsky 2008). If this has not occurred around the
event of death and usually by people who were already familiar with the
dead person, then the dead must remind the living to remember to forget
them (paraphrasing Taylor 1993). ‘Affinity’ prolongs considerably the process
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of becoming dead (forging a necrography), as a parallel process of unbecoming

living (obviating from biography) through the exchange with the biographies of
the living. Too much presence, materialisation and identification (such as that of
aimlessly ‘wandering’, ‘dark’ or ‘sent’ muertos) just as too much absence, dema-
terialisation and differentiation (such as denial of exchange as a potential or
highly elevated spirits) tend to block the flow of exchange and ‘affinity’. On
the contrary, a full ‘acknowledgement’ and ‘development’ of exchange make
biographies and necrographies, the living and the dead, the past and the
present, full reciprocal subjects, wherein identity is mutually implicated
(exchanged) with alterity.
Analytically speaking, I have been implicitly guided by Baudrillard’s notion
of exchange in death-related phenomena (1993). If Hertz’s longue durée is not
so long and not so reciprocal after all, then we might find ourselves in need
of a broader and less linear kind of reciprocity, one which does not have to
anxiously face its extinction, its ‘death’, at the end of the road. Baudrillard’s
sophisticated argument is a corrective of a very widespread understanding of
death in a characteristic fashion of binary oppositions. On the one hand,
there is the view of death as the ultimate annihilation and cessation of life.
According to such a view, death is the exact opposite of life. This leads to
the banishment of death and the dead from the ‘actual’ space and time of life
and relationality with the living, what Baudrillard calls a ‘radical utopia’ (1993:
126). The living and the dead do not converse any more, they do not relate
to each other. On the contrary, life becomes a project of ‘political economy’
(1993: 144 – 148); that is, of constant labour and production as well as of ‘ration-
alisation’, a large part of which relies precisely upon the prohibition of death.
This is because death, viewed as the end of everything and, thus, of labour

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 17

and production, becomes the arch enemy of ‘political economy’, modern life’s
main project.
On the other hand, we have death as ‘symbolic exchange’. I will leave aside
the ‘symbolic’ aspect. Suffice it to say that this different view, in stark contrast to
the former, relates the living and the dead in full reciprocity and conversation,
that is, in a relationship of exchange in non-economic terms. Baudrillard’s orig-
inality lies in the fact that his scheme of death as exchange preserves the onto-
logical difference of death from life, because their difference is precisely what
permits them to enter into exchange. What death is not is the annihilation of
life; it is different from life but not its opposite. In other words, one could say
that by claiming that death is ontologically different from life but not for that
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matter its opposite, Baudrillard also skilfully gives death an ontological status
to begin with; precisely what, according to him, death in ‘political economy’
lacks. The dead, if they are to be agents of exchange, are equally subjects as
the living, with the only difference that they are different subjects:

When the primitive showers the dead with signs, it is in order to make the transition
towards the state of death as quick as possible, beyond the ambiguity between the
living and the dead which is precisely what the disintegrating flesh testifies to. It is
not a question of making the dead play the role of the living: the primitive concedes
the dead their difference, for it is at this cost that they will be able to become partners
and exchange their signs. (1993: 181)

I believe that this view is of profound reach and goes well beyond some of the
widespread, taken-for-granted truisms about death. When the dead are in full
reciprocity with the living, this does not mean that they are the same. Para-
phrasing Victor Hugo, Baudrillard exclaims: ‘[B]y dint of being washed and
sponged, cleaned and scoured, denied and warded off, death rubs off onto
every aspect of life’ (1993: 180). Thus, and contrary to a common understanding
(see Burke 1952; Demske 1970; Agamben 1991; Bauman 1992; Becker 2014), the
radical absence of death and the dead as one side of a coin which has as its
other side their radical presence is not universal but only belongs, in Baudril-
lard’s view, to the ‘political economy’, to ‘our’, view of death.
The radical difference that is attributed to life from death creates an impossi-
bility of dealing with the latter positively and, thus, this comes full circle to
subsume death in life and create between them, paradoxically, a radical identity.
Both radical extremes, according to Baudrillard, belong to the same ‘cultural’
system in which death is denied its subjectivity and full reciprocity with life.
On the contrary, where death stands in full reciprocity and exchange with

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 18 anastasios panagiotopoulos

life, the radical difference between them, just as radical identity, hinders this
flow. Exchange is, thus, a relational modality in which alterity and identity
become equal (not identical) interlocutors and necessary ingredients for the
mobilisation of reciprocity (see also Viveiros de Castro 2004; Descola 2013:
311 – 321). But here is where Baudrillard can himself be radicalised, because as
soon as exchange acknowledges full subjectivity to the exchanging parts, no
linear, definitive and conclusive avenue is necessary.
The dynamics of exchange are encompassed in the reciprocity between the
identification and differentiation of the triangle: biographies of the dead, their
necrographies and the biographies of the living. This kind of exchange is
mutually nurturing of and constituted by the flow of perspectives from the
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dead and their mediums with a highly oracular quality. The presence of and
attention to the dead are so intimately linked to what they can offer in terms
of shedding light on one’s ‘path’ that it would not be unfair to say that, in a
sense, the living take advantage of the precarious and fluid ontological state
of the (not-yet-fully) dead, and actively prolong a situation that perhaps
could have concluded much earlier. One friend of mine, Julio, described this
situation in terms of ‘addiction’ (interestingly, a similar understanding appears
in Palmié 2002: 173):

One gets addicted to the other in a way. The muerto gets addicted to becoming part of
my life, of my everyday preoccupations, my obstacles that appear in my path, my joys
and my frustrations. I get addicted to its capacity to see things the way only muertos
can and give me extremely useful advice precisely on the above issues. Our paths are
so much crossed that it is difficult for the one to let the other go. I feed my muerto a bit
of life and my muerto feeds me with things only they [muertos] can; it feeds me a bit of
death!

Muertos, as the present ethnography has strongly implied, are intimately linked
to a wide, complex, marginal yet popular context wherein divination skills and
oracular sensibilities are highly valued, sought after (sometimes anxiously and
excessively) and cultivated. If a large part of the Cuban population feels that
their ‘paths’ find themselves in a state of stagnation or deviation, it is not
hard to understand why divination sensibilities are so highly valued (without
implying that they exist only because of this). ‘Affinity’ muertos, of all the
various kinds and degrees of being and becoming dead, are those who partici-
pate with the most intensity and frequency to this oracular (over)production; to
such an extent that is hard to discern what comes first. ‘Affinity’ and oracular
articulacy end up becoming one. Here we can see a multiplicity of ‘paths’

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 19

coexisting in the same ‘cultural’ or ‘cosmological’ system concerning death. This

coexistence creates not only a parallel universe but also a ‘crossed’ one.
One path, what may be called the ideal one, is for deceased people to ‘trans-
cend’ shortly after their death through the help of their kinfolk or other famil-
iars. As this is an ideal which in Cuba seems particularly unlikely to be realised, a
second path appears, one in which after a prolonged period of unacknowledge-
ment things are finally reversed and start ‘walking’ towards the first path. ‘Affi-
nity’ presents itself as an amendment effort to redirect paths gone astray from
the otherwise and only ideally linear direction of death. The exchange of ‘affi-
nity’ creates a more dynamic situation than, say, the instantaneous transform-
ation of remembering to forgetting, or from matter to non-matter. But then a
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third path arises precisely because the process of exchange that is ignited in
the second path dissolves the linearity of things and brings to the fore new
dynamics.
Rather than ‘walking’ from remembering to forgetting, from materialisation
to dematerialisation, these dynamics proceed by exchanging the two opposite
parts in a single and synchronous frame. Remembering is not succeeded by for-
getting, but the two coexist and feed off one other. This more radical ‘model’ of
exchange is sustained, tested and ‘developed’ by the production of oracular per-
spectives. The measure and guide of exchange (between identity and alterity,
life and death) become the continuation of production of these perspectives
which are subsequently put to the ‘test’, so as ‘paths’, in their crossings,
acquire a direction and start ‘walking’. This constitutes a transformation of a
transformation, which is the radicalising of exchange itself, because ‘affinity’
muertos, as soon and as long as their exchangeability is being ‘acknowledged’
and ‘developed’, never actually become dead but are caught in an interminably
liminal process of becoming dead. The oracular (over)production that is gener-
ated leaves aside the initial and ideal directions and leaves things beyond the
point of conclusion and of genealogical, emotional or institutional death. It
finds its path out of dead ends. To paraphrase once more Taylor (1993), perhaps
in the very process of remembering to forget, the living and along with them
the dead forget to remember to forget!
Death in Cuba is not a foreclosed case, because it is not exhausted in either an
instant or a linear transition, but opens up a more dynamic path of exchange. If
the dead we remember are our ancestors, what about the dead we forget? Do
they become ‘orphans’, irrespective of whether or not they were kinfolk in
life? Is Cuba in particular a place where there is an overcrowding of ‘orphan’
dead? Is the Caribbean or Latin America one? Is the colonial and, thus,

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 20 anastasios panagiotopoulos

postcolonial context particularly fertile for ‘orphans’? Perhaps; or maybe there

are ‘orphan’ ancestors everywhere and what makes Cuba particular is that
there are ample sensibilities where the ‘orphans’ and their perspectives are
‘adopted’; whereas in many other cases they are never acknowledged or, if
they are, they are promptly ostracised and marginalised as ‘phantasms’, ‘vam-
pires’ or ‘zombies’ (for cases in the New World context and Africa, see Bour-
guignon 1959; MacGaffey 1986; Velzen 1995; Derby 1999).
The most solid sociological manifestation of the bringing together of
‘orphan’ muertos with the (over)production of oracular perception and articu-
lation through ‘affinity’ is the persistent and, arguably, proliferating presence of
‘religious families’ ( familias religiosas). There has been no systematic engage-
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ment with their wider role in Cuban society, since their gradual formation
along the twentieth century up to the present (for a good overview of their
internal organisation in the case of the Ocha/Ifá tradition, see Brown 2003:
63– 112). ‘Religious families’ are the basic group unit around which popular
Afro-Cuban religiosity is organised. As muertos for many a people are impli-
cated in this wider spiritual exploration, they too have their place in these ‘reli-
gious families’, wherein kinship-like terms are employed. For instance, these
families are headed by ‘godparents’ (padrinos and madrinas) who, by way of
initiations, ritual and oracular guidance, create an ideally ever-proliferating
spiritual offspring of ‘godchildren’ (ahijados), who in their turn may in the
future create their own ‘families’, thus having ‘trunks’ (troncos) ramifying into
‘branches’ (ramas). ‘Religious families’ are indeed very complex networks of
great sociological significance and their lack of institutionalisation creates a
dynamic grassroots form of citizenship (see Hearn 2008; Routon 2010).
‘Orphan’ muertos are ‘adopted’ within these ‘religious families’, just as their
living counterparts are, as these ‘families’, in most part, are constructed not
in consanguineous terms but in ‘religious’ ones. Be they dead or living, non-
kinfolk are full of potential, through their capacity to exchange valuable (ora-
cular) perspectives and affinities, in creating biographical trajectories that go
well beyond the well-trodden paths of conventional genealogies and insti-
tutions.
This leaves Cuban ‘kinship’ and ancestry, just like death, a structurally open
matter, always in threat or promise to be redefined or revealed through the
crossing of paths which may generate unpredictable mobilisations and redirec-
tions. Could all this be related to the very peculiarly Cuban phenomenon that
there is no tangible indigenous genealogical reckoning? For most Cubans,
ancestry ultimately derives from somewhere outside of Cuba (be that Europe,

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1–25)

 When Biographies Cross Necrographies 21

Africa or elsewhere). The indigenous population of Cuba has been said to have
physically and culturally perished from an early stage of colonisation (Gott
2005: 21 – 23). This does not mean that Cubans are completely oblivious to
this absence, but it creates a seemingly paradoxical, diffused and intangible
sense that all and no Cubans may have indigenous ancestry; and in fact,
many ‘orphan’ muertos are spirits of indigenous people.
Although not possible to substantiate any direct link whatsoever, I wish to
mention a phenomenon that runs parallel to what I am describing here and
which may be placed as a generalised background that points to the sociological
significance of non-kinship elements in Cuban intimacies. This is the phenom-
enon of adoption, usually through informal, intermittent, diffused and blurred
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rather than official means. There are far more cases than my European experi-
ence, of individuals having been, partially at least or at some points in their lives,
brought up and cared for by people other than their immediate family, such as
second-grade relatives or even neighbours. The current post-Soviet situation
certainly accentuated such a phenomenon, as families were split due to mass
migration or because adults at their most active age had to struggle in order
to make ends meet. But there are far deeper historical roots, as previously men-
tioned of the colonial context. Between the very present and the distant past,
what lies in between? This should be taken as a point for further elaboration
and research and, thus, here it could only serve as a merely suggestive back-
ground element.
One could argue that all these hints, along with the dynamism of ‘religious
families’, point to the wider sociological significance of kinship ties, so much
so that these latter lend themselves as metaphors for other kinds of ties too,
be they of actual adoptions among the living, religious or even political ties
(see Härkönen 2014). This may well be the case and here Catholicism may
have played its part. But if the family is such a valued relational category, this
is intensely accompanied by and contrasted with its instability when it comes
to defining its constitutive ingredients and units. The ‘orphan’ muertos con-
stantly pose to the living Cubans the following question: who are our ancestors?
The uprooted and forgotten dead are not a mere anomaly or parenthesis in the
Cuban context, but run in the very historical veins of its non-genealogical and
non-institutional affinities and adoptions. The significance of the Others, as
other-than-kinfolk and other-than-living, suggests that what is equally valued
is the exchanges of perspectives that are generated in the crossing of paths
between biographies and necrographies.

ethnos, 2016 (pp. 1 –25)

 22 anastasios panagiotopoulos

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT),
Portugal, under Grant: SFRH/BPD/76656/2011. I am also deeply grateful to Dr
Dimitri Tsintjilonis, Dr Diana Espı́rito Santo and Dr Magnus Course for their invalu-
able comments and Angela Riviere and Rebecca Rotter for their crucial help, linguis-
tic and otherwise. I also had the chance to present versions of the paper in three
occasions: Firstly, at a seminar organised by the ‘Greek Society for Ethnology’ in
Greece; secondly, at the 2014 ASA and thirdly, at one of the weekly seminars of
the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, UK. I wish to
thank the organisers of all those events for inviting me, as well as its participants
for their extremely useful feedback. It goes without saying that I am deeply grateful
for the support and comments of the editor of Ethnos, Dr Nils Bubandt, and the two
anonymous reviewers.
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Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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