Developing a Cross-Cultural Model of Grief: The State of the Field

Abstract

The article explores the state of the field in developing a cross-cultural model of grief. Dialogues within several disciplines bear on the question, but those dialogues are very separated from each other. After drawing a distinction between cross-cultural and multi-cultural, the article reviews research from a broad range of psychological and social sciences. The issue of psychic unity vs. cultural diversity had prevented fuller use of anthropologists' work, but sociology of knowledge mediates between those poles. Contemporary work on the universality of emotions provides the concept of innate meta interpretive schemas within cognitive models supplied by culture. Cultural historians trace changes in how death is perceived and in the acceptability of emotional expression. The article concludes with two suggestions to carry the field forward: one a large scale cross-cultural survey and the other qualitative study in both the researcher's culture and in other cultures.

Influences of Religion and Culture on Continuing Bonds in a Sample of British Muslims of Pakistani Origin

“…In his response to a special issue of Death Studies (2006) devoted to the role of continuing bonds in adaptation to bereavement, Klass (2006) drew attention to the need to include ''community, cultural, and political narratives in our understanding of continuing bonds'' to avoid the danger of ''building theory that applies to only a small portion of one population in one historical time' ' (p. 843). This call to attend to the influence of culture on bereavement has previously been raised by many (e.g., Klass, 1999;Parkes, Laungani, & Young, 1997;Rosenblatt, 1996;Stroebe, Gergen, Gergen, & Stroebe, 1996;Stroebe, Hansson, & Stroebe, 2003). The research project reported in this article addresses this issue by considering the interplay between religion, culture and continuing bonds in one ethnic and religious minority group (Muslims of Pakistani origin) in the United Kingdom.…”

The Grief and Trauma Project: A Group Work Approach to Restoring Emotional and Spiritual Health to Women in Bereaved and Traumatised Indigent Communities in the Western Cape, South Africa

“…This is a method of offering tools to healthily manage their lives in their particular context in a more positive manner. It employs context-specific tools aimed at the continuous grief and trauma after violence that is the South African experience in resource-poor communities (Benjamin & Crawford-Browne, 2010;Benjamin, 2011;Klass, 1999).…”

“…These theories have been challenged (Wortman & Silver, 1989), as have theories relating to the connection with the dead, e.g. leaving the dead behind and reinvesting in new relationships has been countered with the view that the bonds between the deceased and the survivor continue but in a different form (Klass, 1999). Stroebe and Schut have argued that what occurs for the bereaved person is a fluctuation between loss and restoration-orientated processes as the person learns to adapt to the loss (Stroebe & Schut, 1999;Stroebe, 2001).…”

“…Theories of grief (Klass, 1999;Stroebe, 2001;Worden, 2003;Neimeyer et al, 2006) focus mainly on the individual in need of psychological support. The influence of context on the experience and manifestation of grief with reference to South Africa has been studied by Kasiram and Partab (2002) and Somhlaba and Wait (2009); however the focus has remained on individuals and their reactions to grief.…”

Parental death as a vital conjuncture? Intergenerational care and responsibility following bereavement in Senegal

“…551 dimensions of death and absence (Hockey, Komovomy and Woodthorpe 2010;Klass 1999;Maddrell and Sidaway 2010). Relationships between the living and dead have been theorised in terms of 'continuing bonds' (Klass, Silverman and Nickman 1996) which are shaped by relationships in life, by the nature of the death itself and by other social factors such as economic status, ethnicity, religion, age, gender and sexuality among others (Howarth 2007;Ribbens McCarthy 2012).…”