In recent decades, the meaning of death seems to have changed in profound ways in Kinshasa as indeed in the whole Democratic Republic of Congo. This article reflects on mourning rituals as they emerge today among young urbanites in Kinshasa. The changing practices surrounding the place of death in the city are analysed as specific ways in which young Kinois urbanites not only contest the realm of official politics and dominant religious discourses and practices, but also use the instance of death to rethink and reposition themselves in the light of a broader, essentially moral, crisis. Paradoxically, urban youth seem to revive more ‘traditional’ forms of ‘rituals of rebellion’ and tap into moral matrixes with much older roots, thereby inventing a future for traditions that are themselves already reinvented in the urban context. The article is based on several years of field research in Kinshasa, most recently in September 2005. Bibliogr., notes, sum. in Dutch, English and French. [Journal abstract, edited]
