Between Death and Invisibility: A Clinical Analysis of the Work Activity of Gravediggers

Abstract

Gravediggers are workers responsible for conducting the final moments of funeral rituals. This article aimed to analyze the activity of gravediggers considering these workers as active subjects in the process of analyzing their own activity. Therefore, we used the theoretical and methodological contributions of the Activity Clinic, developing clinical qualitative research. Nine gravediggers of a private cemetery located in the countryside of northeastern Brazil participated in this study. Data construction included the observation of working context, individual and group interviews mediated using Double Instruction Technique. We verified that besides the burials, exhumations are the activities that require the most physical and psychic investment from the gravediggers. These workers highlight the need of having courage to perform a job that is highly rejected by society. However, they manage to create new meanings for the prejudices suffered daily and carry out their professional attributions working together, developing interpersonal relationships marked by the use of humor, as well as building  cooperation agreements and accessing the collective and transpersonal memory of these attributions.