Bringing home the dead: photographs, family imaginaries and moral remains

This chapter is based on interviews and home visits with households participating in a project on loss, memory and material culture. Of one hundred individuals and households accessed through door-to-door recruitment on a lengthy South London street, it was not surprising to find that almost half of those people had experienced a bereavement of a close relative, partner or friend in the last ten years. The bereaved ranged in age from young people in their twenties to elderly residents in their eighties and formed a relatively heterogeneous group with diverse ethnic origins and class background though white English, middle class home owners and renters predominated. It was evident from our conversations and their homes that displaying photographs of deceased members of their intimate social circle was important to the bereaved. Specifically, 34 households displayed photographs of parents and children who had passed away. While parent-child relationships were privileged, those more frequently pictured also included grandparents, siblings and to a lesser extent partners.