Abstract:

This paper explores the political ecology of death and emotion through the secularized funeral rituals reform in Singapore. Although scholars have recently acknowledged the roles of emotion in shaping environmental politics, religion and death as socio-affective forces have not been substantively engaged with by political ecologists. In this paper, we argue that death is inherently both a spiritual and ecological phenomenon, as it addresses not only the spiritual landscape of how people see the natural world, but also the affective tensions and struggles over what counts as a "proper" form of burial in relation to religion and nature. We first investigate the way that the Singapore state utilizes ecological discourses to secularize Chinese death rituals, such that the death can be separated from the transcendent spheres and incorporated into the environmental biopolitics. Second, we examine how Chinese Singaporeans negotiate the emotional tensions in relation to the secularized rituals and especially the sea burials. This paper brings the issue of death into dialogue with political ecology and reflects on its emotional capacity in shaping environmental politics.

Key words: death, Chinese religion, political ecology, emotion, rituals, Singapore

摘要：

以新加坡丧葬改革为例，探讨死亡和宗教背后的生态政治、情感矛盾和土地使用问题。近年来人文地理学开始关注情感在塑造环境政治中的作用，但宗教与死亡作为一种社会情感力量却没有引起生态政治学的重视。本文认为死亡（包括丧葬和死亡仪式）本质上是一种精神现象与生态政治现象的交织，因为它不仅是一种反映人类认知自然的精神景观（例如风水）；同时，如何定义“合适的”丧葬方式又是一个与自然、土地和情感相互纠结的权力博弈过程。本文首先阐述了新加坡政府是如何利用生态政治话语对华人传统丧葬及其仪式进行世俗化改革，使得“死亡”可以从宗教领域中脱离而被纳入国家环境治理与生命政治的框架内。其次，研究关注新加坡华人如何响应国家的丧葬改革（特别是海葬的推广）以及如何对丧葬背后的情感、宗教和伦理问题进行协商。本研究将死亡议题引入生态政治学研究，思考丧葬背后的生态政治对生态文明与和谐社会建设的意义。

关键词: 死亡, 华人宗教, 生态政治, 情感, 葬礼, 新加坡