Funerals and families: locating death as a relational issue

Abstract

Situated at the intersection of the Sociology of Death and Sociology of the Family, this paper argues that the organization and funding of funerals is an overlooked and available lens through which to examine cultural and political norms of familial obligation. Drawing on interviews with claimants to the Department for Work and Pensions' Social Fund Funeral Payment, the paper shows how both responsibility for the organization and payment of a funeral is assumed within families, and how at times this can be overridden by the state. In highlighting the tension between reflexive choice and political norms of family espoused in this policy context, it supports Gilding's () assertion that understanding family practice through reflexivity alone neglects the institutions and conventions within which 'doing' family takes place. In so doing, the paper further makes a case for families and relational negotiations and tensions to be more explicitly included within sociological understanding(s) of death more generally.

Family food practices: relationships, materiality and the everyday at the end of life

“…In death studies there are a number of empirical accounts of dying as a social, embodied process (Hockey 1990, Lawton 2000, whilst more recently sociological literature concerned with family and relationality at the end of life has started to emerge (Broom and Kirby 2013, Ellis 2013, Woodthorpe and Rumble 2016. Although this, and some previous work, examines 'family' in the context of life-limiting/threatening illness (Bluebond-Langner 1996, Grinyer 2002, the conceptual relevance of everyday practices for understanding how relationships are negotiated when a relative is dying has received limited attention.…”

Pregnancy remains, infant remains, or the corpse of a child? The incoherent governance of the dead foetal body in England

“…The classification of the foetal body as 'human corpse', 'pregnancy remains', or 'infant remains' affects the choices available to relations about the disposal of the body. It also affects who has the responsibility to pay for and arrange the disposal, conceptualised through normative UK cultural assumptions about family relations and obligations reflected in state financial support for funerals (Woodthorpe & Rumble, 2016). In relation to disposal responsibility, there is some flexibility in English law about who this falls upon, except in the case of parents.…”

‘We Don’t Want to Go and Be Idle Ducks’: Family Practices at the End of Life

“…By focusing specifically on empirical examples of the way in which the end of life is negotiated between family members, this article illustrates what relationships, and specifically 'family life', may look like as family members approach the end of their lives. Drawing on the ongoing interest in the relational turn within the social sciences (Smart, 2007), it contributes to a small but growing corpus of sociological and anthropological work that recognises the primacy of relationships within/and dying, death and bereavement (for examples see Borgstrom, 2015;Broom and Kirby, 2013;Ellis, 2013Ellis, , 2018Peel and Harding, 2015;Ribbens et al, 2014;Szmigin and Canning, 2015;Woodthorpe and Rumble, 2016). This literature has sought to understand dying and death via an exploration of interactions and networks, resisting the reduction of the end of life to a study of partial elements that emphasises the importance of 'individuals' or 'social structure'.…”

“…Such a preoccupation with examining the individual and their inner psychological worlds (Small and Hockey, 2001) omits the fact that people have relationships when they are dying, and that the end of life (which is more than the moment of death, see below) is one that is negotiated between people (Broom and Kirby, 2013). Moreover, while sociologists are not unique in their oversight of the relational features of the end of life (Woodthorpe and Rumble, 2016), using conceptual tools like family practices and displays of family, sociologists are best positioned to understand the complexities and dynamics of family relationships.…”

“…Drawing on the ongoing interest in the relational turn within the social sciences (Smart, 2007), it contributes to a small but growing corpus of sociological and anthropological work that recognises the primacy of relationships within/and dying, death and bereavement (for examples see Ellis, 2018;Woodthorpe and Rumble, 2016;Borgstrom, 2015;Peel and Harding, 2015;Szmigin and Canning, 2015;Ribbens McCarthy and Prokhovnik, 2014;Broom and Kirby, 2013). This literature has sought to understand dying and death via an exploration of interactions and networks, resisting the reduction of the end of life to a study of partial elements that emphasises the importance of 'individuals' or 'social structure'.…”