Forensic Medicine – seen through the eyes of a social anthropologist

For the average Dane death has become part of daily life. The media paints a picture of numerous violent acts, but even though we come across it on a daily basis certain aspects of death, e.g. working with the dead, are still seen as taboos.

This article is based on my internship at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Odense in February 2011 where I participated in the daily routines, and therefore had the opportunity to see how the employees relate to death and the dead.

The section “A Room of Impurities” deals with the symbolical impurity of the autopsy rooms at the Institute, since death, according to the anthropologist Mary Douglas, is a taboo and therefore something symbolically impure. In the section “Subjects or Objects?” another aspect of working with the dead is presented. The employees at the Institute have an ability to see the dead as both subjects and objects and to switch between these. The dead body as an object can equally be seen as something impure. The last section “A Part of Human Life” compares the taboo surrounding the Institute of Forensic Medicine with the view upon death in Tibet, and concludes on the manuscript.