The relationship between the living and the dead has been the subject of numerous stud-
ies, which show a wide variety of ways in which this relationship has developed over
time and in different socio-cultural contexts. Whether through the materiality of the re-
mains of the deceased or the entities they have become over time, such as spirits or other
ghosts, these relationships are deployed in various directions depending on the purpose
pursued by the living. This article looks at the agentive part of the dead that underlies
these relationships and drives the living to act in one or other of these directions. To this
end, it first examines the way in which the notion of agency is mobilized in certain theo-
retical and empirical approaches. It then sketches out an experimental grammar of rela-
tions between the living and the dead, a grammar that makes it possible to identify and
situate the intervention of more or less specialized intermediaries, likely to make this
agentive part of the dead effective