6 - Displaying the Dead Body

Summary

The conclusion ties together the framing of obscenity in how we evaluate corpse politics. It draws out five key points. First, dead bodies are vital matter, and examining dead bodies can not only shed light on cultural contexts, but it also blurs and complicates previous approaches to visuality and materiality. Second, dead bodies are inscribed with the workings of statecraft. The process of visually manifesting and narrativizing particular dead bodies is a complex social, cultural, and political process that is worth looking at. Third, what counts as obscene is a social construction and graphicness serves particular political ends. Fourth, obscene death is often characterized using the language of the extreme, the exceptional, and at times the unrepresentable. We should be asking ourselves what politics this state of exception serves, particularly about how images can both sustain and resist particular political orders. Lastly, the conclusion examines the idea of ethical witnessing, seeking to complicate the picture often painted of it, and reflect on what it means to write a book on corpse politics and the visceral experiences it often involves.