“To be socially dead is to be deprived of the network of social relations, particularly kinship relations, that would otherwise support, protect, and give meaning to one’s precarious life as an individual. It is to be violently and permanently separated from one’s kin, blocked from forming any meaningful relationship, not only to others in the present but also to the heritage of the past and the legacy of the future beyond one’s own finite, individuated being.” 

Lisa Guenther