Emic–Etic Perspectives on Southeast Asian Cultural Attitudes Surrounding Human Remains

Abstract

Community ethics and cultural attitudes vary across contexts in which professionals work with human remains. Southeast Asia is home to millions; thus, there are challenges when attempting to understand and articulate the diversity in cultures, ideologies, and ethics surrounding the dead. Our semi-autoethnographic and qualitative research addresses these challenges through a critical self-examination of how we conduct our work with human remains, engaging with diverse communities around us. Our approach combines insights from osteologists, which provide both culturally informed personal perspectives (emic) and professional views of ethical issues surrounding work with human remains (etic). Thematic analysis returned three main themes: (a) we in Southeast Asia, who work directly with the dead, are influenced heavily by the social and ideological norms we operate within; (b) community attitudes towards our professions are diverse and interesting to consider in and of themselves; (c) it is important to put efforts into public engagement on science and ethics, particularly with local community members and government authorities, and influence others in society to adopt or further a dynamic, non-monolithic culture of respect towards human remains. We hope this study adds to the growing literature on ethics in the biological, archaeological, and forensic sciences.