Arnold, J.E., Graesch, A.P., Ragazzini, E., & Ochs, E. (2012). Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors. Los Angeles: University of California-Los Angles Press. ISBN: 978-1-931745-61-1. 171 pp. (hardcover).

How are ethnographic photographs from the twentieth century accessed and represented in the twenty-first century? This report from the Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology at the University of California San Diego Library provides an overview of the photographic materials, arrangements and types of documentation in the archive, followed by summaries of specific digitization projects of the photographs from physician Sylvester Lambert and anthropologists Roger Keesing and Harold Scheffler, among others. Through the process of digitization and online access, ethnographic photographs are transformed and may be discovered and contextualized in new ways. Utilizing new technologies and forming broad collaborations, these digitization projects incorporate both anthropological and archival practices and also raise ethical questions. This is an in-depth look at what is digitized and how it is described to re/create meaning and context and to bring new life to these images.

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Providing a “peaceful death” in the twenty-first century

The Journal of Healthcare Ethics & Administration ◽

10.22461/jhea.1.71623 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 1-18

Author(s):

Evangel Sarwar

Keyword(s):

End Of Life ◽

Terminal Illness ◽

Life Experience ◽

Death And Dying ◽

Natural Course ◽

First Century ◽

The Past ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

Dying At Home ◽

At Home

Advances in medical technology have not only raised our expectations that medicine can perform miracles and keep us alive; it has also raised conflicts in allowing death to take its natural course. Many dilemmas are faced by physicians as well as families in end-of-life care and relieving the suffering. Ethical dilemmas about how to ensure individuals with terminal illness/end-of-life experience a “peaceful death,” when the meaning and perception of death has changed due to technology? In the past, death was expected and accepted, with rituals. Today, death has been reduced to an unheard phenomenon - shameful and forbidden. The advances in technology brought with it a change in culture of medicine from caring to curing, where medicine is expected to heal any disease. This advance has also acted as a double-edged sword, where longer lives come at the price of greater suffering, illness, and higher costs. While most Americans want to die at home, surrounded by loved ones - the “medicalization” of death does not allow the natural course of death to take place. Although recent studies indicate that more Americans are dying at home, most people still die in hospital beds – alone. This paper looks at the transition that took place in the concept of death and dying, and the impacts of technology, and makes suggestions for facilitating a “peaceful death” in the twenty-first century.

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