earticle

영어

This study reinterprets the worsening problem of lonely deaths(kodokushi) in Korea and Japan, both of which have entered hyper-aged society,, from the perspective of the “Individualization of death.” It proposes community-based alternatives to overcome this problem. Comparing the changing funeral cultures of Korea and Japan, the trend toward urbanization and nuclear families, and policies addressing lonely death, it reveals that both societies have reduced death to a private and individual event managed by the family, market, and state, thereby losing the sense of relational death. To transcend this, we examine Jean-Luc Nancy's “community of inaction” as a theoretical framework and rethink death as a catalyst for community formation that enables the sharing of otherness and finitude. From this perspective, this study proposes a three-stage community care model for permanent rental apartment complexes in Korea: ① relationship building through everyday mutual care, ② communalization of death through resident-participatory funerals, and ③ relationship reconstruction through memory and mourning. Furthermore, to ensure the sustainability of this model, we introduce social currency and a relationship-based economy to transform care, funeral, and memory activities into socially recognized contributions, suggesting the potential for expansion into community businesses such as funeral support and mourning coordination. This is significant in that it shifts the focus on preventing lonely deaths beyond the confines of welfare or administrative functions to the task of restoring community relationships. Furthermore, the possibility of conditional application to Japanese public housing may also be considered.