Funerary composting: participatory action research to support a societal transition

This research program stems from a request from civil society for experimental studies on the funerary practice of composting.

In recent years, a positive ambition to reduce the environmental impact of the deceased and restore meaning to death has been developing: we speak of green or emerging funeral practices. The natural organic reduction of corpses, otherwise known as funeral composting, is already used in 7 American states, and 46% of French people would be prepared to use it. The body of the deceased is placed on a bed of plant shavings, then covered with the same material. Under the action of aerobic bacteria, the whole is rapidly transformed into potting soil. But despite this virtuous ambition and real societal expectations, two official requests for legalization have already been rejected. In both cases, the refusals were based on a lack of sufficient scientific argument. Studies are therefore needed to test its efficacy and harmlessness.

This issue, which currently falls within the remit of undone science, is complex due to its trans-disciplinary nature and the need to involve a multitude of players from research, civil society, professionals and even health agencies. Even if we restrict the issue to scientific questions, knowledge about funeral composting is scattered across an interdisciplinary spectrum ranging from funerary anthropology to ecology, from technical notes (grey literature) to practical experience (the know-how of master composters). There is thus no simple or intuitive approach to this question.

Our approach is based on Participatory Action Research (PAR) and revolves around a central objective: the co-design and testing under real conditions of funeral composting procedures (i.e. experimentation). To achieve this, we propose a transdisciplinary approach combining mortuary anthropology, experimental biology and archaeology. Our program brings together two laboratories from different fields (Biology/Law and Archaeoanthropology) and is structured into four tasks. 1/ A collaborative analysis of the evolution of mortuary practices, enabling us to identify the scientific/technical issues linked to funerary composting (co-design) 2/ the creation of a logistical framework enabling us to carry out experiments 3/ the co-construction of protocols, which will then be the subject of full-scale tests enabling us to collect data and collectively validate their effectiveness (co-realization) 4/ the creation of deliverables in the form of scientific content (publications) as well as useful documents, i.e. enabling decision-making (legislative change). We also propose a more reflexive approach around undone science and the RAP approach.