Author(s)

ChengDian Song

Affiliation(s)

Faculty of Arts, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Region 999077, China.

Corresponding Author

ChengDian Song

ABSTRACT

The French historian Philippe Ariès posited that the twentieth century ushered in an era of “invisible death,” where death became increasingly marginalized and secluded in the process of modernization, turning into a secretive taboo. While this theory offers a pivotal framework for understanding the transformation of death in Western society, its applicability to non-Western contexts remains untested. Post-war Hong Kong region provides a valuable case study for this examination.Therefore, the death in post-war Hong Kong region did not fade out of social vision, but was re-anchored through a series of institutional and ritual practices, becoming a continuously visible component of social structure. By analyzing this unique case, this study not only reveals the cross-cultural application limitations of the “invisible death” theory, but also attempts to clarify the cultural institutional arrangements that maintain and reconstruct the visibility of death in modern society.

KEYWORDS

Invisible death; Post-war Hong Kong region; Visibility of death; Cultural system

CITE THIS PAPER

ChengDian Song. The applicability of “invisible death” to postwar Hong Kong region. Trends in Social Sciences and Humanities Research. 2025, 3(7): 63-67. DOI: https://doi.org/10.61784/tsshr3196.

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