All societies have their own customs and beliefs surrounding death. In the West, traditional ways of mourning are disappearing, and though science has had a major impact on views of death, it has taught us little about the way to die or to grieve. Many who come into contact with the dying and the bereaved from other cultures are at a loss to know how to offer appropriate and sensitive support. Death and Bereavement Across Cultures, provides a handbook with which to meet the needs of doctors, nurses, social workers, counsellors and others involved in the care of the dying and bereaved. Written by international authorities in the field, this important text: * describes the rituals and beliefs of major world religions * explains their psychological and historical context * shows how customs change on contact with the West * considers the implications for the future This book explores the richness of mourning traditions around the world with the aim of increasing the understanding which we all bring to the issue of death.
All societies have their own customs and beliefs surrounding death. This handbook explains how to offer appropriate and sensitive support to those from other cultures who are dying or bereaved.
All societies have their own customs and beliefs surrounding death. This handbook explains how to offer appropriate and sensitive support to those from other cultures who are dying or bereaved.
Death Across Cultures: Death and Dying in Non-Western Cultures, explores death practices and beliefs, before and after death, around the non-Western world. It includes chapters on countries in Africa, Asia, South America, as well as indigenous people in Australia and North America. These chapters address changes in death rituals and beliefs, medicalization and the industry of death, and the different ways cultures mediate the impacts of modernity. Comparative studies with the west and among countries are included. This book brings together global research conducted by anthropologists, social scientists and scholars who work closely with individuals from the cultures they are writing about.
Food has played a major role in funerary and memorial practices since the dawn of the human race. In the ancient Roman world, for example, it was common practice to build channels from the tops of graves into the crypts themselves, and mourners would regularly pour offerings of food and drink into these conduits to nourish the dead while they waited for the afterlife. Funeral cookies wrapped with printed prayers and poems meant to comfort mourners became popular in Victorian England; while in China, Japan, and Korea, it is customary to offer food not only to the bereaved, but to the deceased, with ritual dishes prepared and served to the dead. Dying to Eat is the first interdisciplinary book to examine the role of food in death, bereavement, and the afterlife. The contributors explore the phenomenon across cultures and religions, investigating topics including tombstone rituals in Buddhism, Catholicism, and Shamanism; the role of death in the Moroccan approach to food; and the role of funeral casseroles and church cookbooks in the Southern United States. This innovative collection not only offers food for thought regarding the theories and methods behind these practices but also provides recipes that allow the reader to connect to the argument through material experience. Illuminating how cooking and corpses both transform and construct social rituals, Dying to Eat serves as a fascinating exploration of the foodways of death and bereavement.
This visionary work explores the sensitive balance between the personal and private aspects of grief, the social and cultural variables that unite communities in bereavement, and the universal experience of loss. Its global journey takes readers into the processes of coping, ritual, and belief across established and emerging nations, indigenous cultures, and countries undergoing major upheavals, richly detailed by native scholars and practitioners. In these pages, culture itself is recognized as formed through many lenses, from the ancestral to the experiential. The human capacity to mourn, endure, and make meaning is examined in papers such as: Death, grief, and culture in Kenya: experiential strengths-based research. Death and grief in Korea: the continuum of life and death. To live with death: loss in Romanian culture. The Brazilian ways of living, dying, and grieving. Death and bereavement in Israel: Jewish, Muslim, and Christian perspectives. Completing the circle of life: death and grief among Native Americans. It is always normal to remember: death, grief, and culture in Australia. The World of Bereavement will fascinate and inspire clinicians, providers, and researchers in the field of death studies as well as privately-held professional training programs and the bereavement community in general.
In Death, Mourning, and Burial, an indispensable introduction to the anthropology of death, readers will find a rich selection of some of the finest ethnographic work on this fascinating topic. Comprised of six sections that mirror the social trajectory of death: conceptualizations of death; death and dying; uncommon death; grief and mourning; mortuary rituals; and remembrance and regeneration Includes canonical readings as well as recent studies on topics such as organ donation and cannibalism Designed for anyone concerned with issues of death and dying, as well as: violence, terrorism, war, state terror, organ theft, and mortuary rituals Serves as a text for anthropology classes, as well as providing a genuinely cross-cultural perspective to all those studying death and dying
`This second edition, which has also been edited by Samson Katz, utilizes around half of the original text, of which a significant portions has been revised and updated. The remainder comprises new material reflecting both the changes in attitudes generally towards death and dying, and also designed to meet the needs of students undertaking the revised curriculum of the K260. This book will stimulate thinking and challenge the personal views of both academics and those in practice. ...[A] valuable tool for both those new to the area of palliative and cancer care and those experienced professionals searching for a new angle on several key topics in relation to ethical issues occurring in this speciality... [A]n excellent balance of theoretical contents and moving prose... [T]his book is directed towards all professionals working in health and social care. ...This book is a must for pre-registration students wishing to gain greater understanding of the psychosocial issues faced by those with a terminal illness and their significant others' - Nurse Education Today The fully revised and updated edition of this bestselling collection combines academic research with professional and personal reflections. Death, Dying and Bereavement addresses both the practical and the more metaphysical aspects of death. Topics such as new methods of pain relief, guidelines for breaking bad news, and current attitudes to euthanasia are considered, while the mystery of death and its wider implications are also explored. A highly distinctive interdisciplinary approach is adopted, including perspectives from literature, theology, sociology and psychology. There are wide-ranging contributions from those who come into professional contact with death and bereavement - doctors, nurses, social workers and councellors. In addition there are more intimate personal accounts from carers and from bereaved people. Death, Dying and Bereavement is the Course Reader for The Open University course Death and Dying, which is offered as part of The Open University Dilpoma in Health and Social Welfare. Praise for the First Edition: `The book does give a broad overview of many of the issues around death, dying and bereavement. It raises the reader's awareness and encourages deeper investigation at every level. It is easy to reda and therefore accessible to a wide audience' - Changes `Provides a richly woven tapestry of personal, professional and literary accounts of death, dying and bereavement' - Health Psychology Update `Offers a unique collection of fascinating information, research, stories, poems and personal reflections. It is unusual to experience such a diversity of writings in one book' - Nursing Times `It brings together the knowledge and skills from a multi-occupational group and thereby offers and opportunity, to whoever reads it, to enable better experiences for those who are dying and bereaved' - Journal of Interprofessional Care `For those trying to help the dying and bereaved, this volume will inspire and move you as much as it will inform and guide your work' - Bereavement Care `Provides a unique overview, and in many areas, penetrating insights into various aspects of death, dying and bereavement. One of it's major strengths is that it brings together a wide and varied discourse on death across cultures and through time' - British Journal of Sociology
Reminders of death were everywhere in the New World, from the epidemics that devastated Indian populations and the mortality of slaves working the Caribbean sugar cane fields to the unfamiliar diseases that afflicted Europeans in the Chesapeake and West Indies. According to historian Erik R. Seeman, when Indians, Africans, and Europeans encountered one another, they could not ignore the similarities in their approaches to death. All of these groups believed in an afterlife to which the soul or spirit traveled after death. As a result all felt that corpses—the earthly vessels for the soul or spirit—should be treated with respect, and all mourned the dead with commemorative rituals. Seeman argues that deathways facilitated communication among peoples otherwise divided by language and custom. They observed, asked questions about, and sometimes even participated in their counterparts' rituals. At the same time, insofar as New World interactions were largely exploitative, the communication facilitated by parallel deathways was often used to influence or gain advantage over one's rivals. In Virginia, for example, John Smith used his knowledge of Powhatan deathways to impress the local Indians with his abilities as a healer as part of his campaign to demonstrate the superiority of English culture. Likewise, in the 1610-1614 war between Indians and English, the Powhatans mutilated English corpses because they knew this act would horrify their enemies. Told in a series of engrossing narratives, Death in the New World is a landmark study that offers a fresh perspective on the dynamics of cross-cultural encounters and their larger ramifications in the Atlantic world.
What is happening emotionally when we grieve for a loved one? Is there a ‘right’ way to grieve? What effect does grief have on how we see ourselves? The Psychology of Grief is a humane and intelligent account that highlights the wide range of responses we have to losing a loved one and explores how psychologists have sought to explain this experience. From Freud’s pioneering psychoanalysis to discredited ideas that we must pass through ‘stages’ of grief, the book examines the social and cultural norms that frame or limit our understanding of the grieving process, as well as looking at the language we use to describe it. Everyone, at some point in their lives, experiences bereavement and The Psychology of Grief will help readers understand both their own and others’ feelings of grief that accompany it.
