The Social Construction of Death

Chapter 12 of this book is open access under a CC BY license. 
Well-established scholars from a variety of disciplines - including sociology, anthropology, media and cultural studies, and political sciences – use the social construction of death and dying to analyse a wide variety of meaning-making practices in societal fields such as ethics, politics, media, medicine and family.

Arnar Árnason, University of Aberdeen, UK Daniel Ashton, Bath Spa University, UK Nico Carpentier, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium Kathy Charmaz, Sonoma State University, USA Joachim Cohen, Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), Belgium John Cromby, Loughborough University, UK Margaret Gibson, Griffith University, Australia Jason Glynos, University of Essex, UK Glennys Howarth, Plymouth University, UK Jenny Kitzinger, Chronic Disorders of Consciousness Research Centre, UK Celia Kitzinger, Chronic Disorders of Consciousness Research Centre, UK Linda Liska Belgrave, University of Miami, USA Fran McInerney, Australian Catholic University and Mercy Health, Melbourne, Australia Adele Phillips, Birmingham University UK Leen Van Brussel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium Tina Weber, Technical University Berlin, Germany

“This volume adds to that progress with a collection of 13 wide-ranging and admirably conducted studies into various aspects of death and dying, mourning and loss, in both situated and mediated dimensions of our engagement with them. Social constructionist/ivist thanatology is one particular perspective among a number of others relevant to the field, but here it is shown to be a wide-ranging, rigorous, and cogent approach which contributes significantly to its theoretical constitution.” (European Journal of Communication, Vol. 32 (1), 2017)

“Van Brussel and Carpentier take the readers into a world that heightens our understanding of the local and distinctive nature of constructions of death and dying and the transactional, subjective nature of our knowledge development, and knowing in death and dying. This book strengthens the social constructionist theoretical underpinnings of death and dying and, at the same time, positions death and dying as central to social constructionist perspectives.” (Cheryl-Anne Cait, Omega, Journal of Death and Dying, December, 2016)

“It gives a good balance of academic voices, both developing and experienced, along with ideas you would hope for in a book on death that includes the tough subjects around killing and dying in war and peace. As a result, it is a text you could return to and use for quick reference on a variety of death-related topics that cover meaning-making practices in societal fields such as media, medicine, ethics, politics and family.” (Judith Wester, Mortality, Vol. 20 (3), June, 2015)

"The Social Construction of Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives provides the reader with a very interesting and valuable interdisciplinary study of death through social constructionism. The edited volume is a display of how the use of a single paradigm (in this case social constructionism/-ivism) can be a valuable way to carry out interdisciplinary research." - Communications (2015)