On the contingency of death: a discourse-theoretical perspective on the construction of death

Competing Discourses Surrounding Primary Caregivers of Hospice Patients

“…These studies demonstrate that patients and their families are comfortable pursuing curative treatments when a cure is not possible. Carpentier and Brussel (2012) believe that the key behind today's cure discourse is the element of control brought by medical science. Culturally we believe that humanity is not helpless in the face of death.…”

“…Within the literature, sometimes death as a process is combined with death as an event. Carpentier and Brussel (2012), in their theoretical study of discourse, social construction, and death, do not consistently distinguish between the process and the event. This can be confusing.…”

“…Most social constructionists acknowledge that the experience of illness or suffering exists as biological reality but they also point out that illness and suffering are given meaning and therefore comprehended and taught by experience through a social process (Carpentier & Brussel, 2012;Sharf, & Vanderford, 2003). The explanation for why we have a particular belief or why a particular discourse competes with another has to do with the role that belief plays in our social life.…”

‘This In-Between’: How Families Talk about Death in Relation to Severe Brain Injury and Disorders of Consciousness

“…Death is sometimes seen to defy social constructionist/ivist theorising -death is the ultimate, non-negotiable, purely natural, 'fact of life' (Carpentier and Van Brussel, 2012). However, thanatologists have detailed the changing social nature of death, who 'owns' death and where it occurs (Illich, 1975;Aries, 1981) as well as highlighting how new 'life-sustaining' technologies have led to new definitions of death and how the space between life and death is historically and socially constructed and contested (Lock, 2002).…”

‘Good’ and ‘bad’ deaths: Narratives and professional identities in interviews with hospice managers

“…Taking a discourse analysis perspective, Carpentier and van Brussel (2012) point out how the notions of a 'good' or 'bad' death have changed over time, and stress the political nature of the 'discourse of death discuss more specifically the discursive construction of a 'good' death in the north Belgian press coverage of three euthanasia cases in 2008. They suggest that the notion of a 'good' death has been politicized, particularly in the discourses associated with palliative care on the one hand and the right to die on the other.…”