Lessons from filial piety : A social-life-span approach to building the connection that survives death

The purpose of this article is to unpack concepts surrounding “the connection that survives death” between living people and the deceased. The study was designed as the qualitative arm of an integrated project on filial piety in contemporary times, and data were collected from 17 interviews with Korean human service professionals from Australia, New Zealand and Korea. The findings from the study indicate that the connectedness with the dead is an important part of the participants’ mental and social lives, and this postmortem relationship can be embodied through practising “memorial piety” and “memorial work”.