How Funerals Accomplish Family

Findings From a Mass-Observation Study

Datos Bibliográficos

ID13628516
AutoresTony Walter (0000-0001-9571-5225, University of Bath, autor de correspondencia), Tara Bailey (University of Bath)
Año2018
Volumen82
Número2
Páginas175-195
Fecha de publicación2018-10-06
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaOMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0030-2228 • E-ISSN: 1541-3764
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0030222818804646
PMID30293480
OpenAlexW2431540849
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas16
Referencias citadas39

The article analyses how potentially conflicting frames of grief and family operate in a number of English funerals. The data come from the 2010 Mass-Observation directive "Going to Funerals" which asked its panel of correspondents to write about the most recent funeral they had attended. In their writings, grief is displayed through conventional understandings of family. Drawing on Randall Collins, we show how the funeral stratifies mourners into family or nonfamily, a stratification accomplished-by family and nonfamily-through both outward display and inner feeling. The funerals described were more about a very traditional notion of family than about grief; family trumped grief, or at least provided the frame through which grief could be written about; and perceptions of "family" prompted emotions which in turn defined family. The funerals were portrayed as a distinct arena privileging family over the fluid and varied personal attachments highlighted in both the new sociology of personal life and in the concept of disenfranchised grief

Data Analysis and Archiving · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Psychology