Christian HENRIOT (Aix-Marseille University)

The 1950s represent a watershed in the relation to death in Shanghai—the end of death, so to speak. Over a decade, the CCP both addressed the root causes of massive deaths in the city and unrelentlessly suppressed and erased the social infrastructures all the institutions that had supported the rich range of funeral practices and beliefs in Chinese society. It moved from a recognition of the sanctity of death to its desecration. This practice made death seemingly «go away» and disappear from everyday life.