death, dying and bereavement: new sociological perspectives

While death, dying and bereavement are universal life events, the social conditions under which death takes place are fundamental in shaping how it is experienced by the individual. Bringing together contributors from around the world, this collection of chapters provides sociological insights into death, dying and bereavement.

Drawing upon a range of sociological theorists, including Émile Durkheim, Zygmunt Bauman and C. Wright Mills, the book reviews the historical contribution of sociology to the field of thanatology. In doing so, the book challenges individualistic psychological approaches to death, dying and bereavement and demonstrates how sociological approaches can shape, constrain and empower experiences by imbuing them with both collective and individual meaning. Chapter-length case studies explore a wide range of issues, from digital aspects of remembrance and memorialisation and continued threats to liberties that permit life and death decisions to discussions of the impact and likely legacy of COVID-19 and climate change.

This collection will be of interest to students and researchers in the social sciences with an interest in societal attitudes towards death and bereavement.

Sharon Mallon is a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health at the University of Staffordshire, UK. She is an experienced qualitative researcher who specialises in projects focused on bereavement and mental health, particularly suicide postvention and prevention, the gendered, social approaches to understanding death by suicide, and the wider impact of suicide bereavement on different bereaved groups. She has also developed a strong interest in the emotional impact of researching sensitive subjects on researchers. She was awarded her PhD for a qualitative study of young adults’ suicides from the perspective of their friends. She is co-editor of Preventing and Responding to Student Suicide: A Practical Guide for FE and HE Settings (2021), Narratives of COVID: Loss, Dying, Death and Grief during COVID-19 (2021), and Unpacking Sensitive Research: Epistemological and Methodological Implications (Routledge, 2022).

Laura Towers is a Research Associate in the Sheffield Methods Institute at the University of Sheffield, UK. Laura’s research interests include exploring the complexity of negotiating changing relationships and identities within the context of grief and bereavement, such as following the loss of a sibling. She is currently working with Professor Kate Reed on bereavement-focused research and with Hospice UK on people’s experiences at work when caring for a dying relative. She was co-convenor of the British Sociological Association’s Social Aspects of Death, Dying and Bereavement Study Group between 2017 and 2022.