Changing Configurations of Día de Muertos during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This pioneering book offers new insights into Día de Muertos and the effect the pandemic had on the practice within wider considerations of how the pandemic has shaped ideas about death and dying differently. It explores how commemorative and mourning practices changed during the turbulent years of 2020-21 and asks how the festival contributed to conversations on global issues such as mental health, exhaustion, and gender violence through its transnational case studies in the UK and Ireland. Based on original textual and visual analysis of Día de Muertos expressions including marches, dance performances, film and calavera poetry production, alongside some ethnographic qualitative data, we offer new insights by examining how Mexicans and Mexicans abroad have engaged with the rich compendium of Día de Muertos symbolic and narrative systems in order to discuss how the pandemic has framed ideas of loss and renewal more widely. Dr Jane Lavery is Associate Professor in Latin American Studies at the University of Southampton, UK. She has published extensively in contemporary Mexican and Latin American visual, cultural and literary studies with a focus on gender, the Day of the Dead, multimedia production and digital humanities. Nuala Finnegan is Professor in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at University College Cork, Ireland and has published extensively in contemporary Mexican literary and visual studies with a particular focus on gender, gender-based violence and cultural production.