Digitala begravningar : En etnologisk studie om upplevelsen av att delta i en direktsänd ritual

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to investigate how people act during and experience the feeling of participating in a digital funeral, in order to increase the understanding of how online rituals function. Through interviews with five people who have participated in digital funerals and based on ritual theory and Sara Ahmed’s phenomenological understanding of emotions, I investigate the following questions: How does it feel to participate in the elements of a digital funeral? How do funeral rituals function in a digital funeral? How can participants actively engage in a digital funeral?  The results of the study show that the experience of participating in a digital funeral does not correspond with the participants expectations and conceptions of what a funeral is. It also shows that the digital funeral and the physical funeral is the same ritual but communicated in two different ways which leads to two different experiences. This leads to the participants feeling disoriented and makes the funeral ritual, with the purpose for the participants to part from the deceased, to not fully have the wanted effect.