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Email: tb268@bath.ac.uk Tara began her PhD in October 2009. Mourners at contemporary British funerals – that is, the people who make up the entire congregation – are in a peculiarly complex position. How does one know how, and indeed whether, to go to a funeral? Mourners’ situation is not entirely anomic – after all, some norms in some forms do exist – but for mourners there is no institutional transmission of norms. In the context of a time of changing funeral practices, this leaves mourners in a position of potentially deep uncertainty. What to expect and what to do, and how to know these, are not simply known, neither is it clear where they can be learned. Existing literature on funerals in contemporary Britain focuses on the funeral industry, presenting the bereaved as passive recipients of a show performed to the funeral director’s benefit. This research aims to contribute an understanding of the funeral which takes into account the views and experiences of the non-professional participants, including those who have no input into the arrangements for the funeral. A further aim is to explore further who these participants are, since the literature generally refers either to ‘the family’, to ‘the bereaved’ or to ‘mourners’, at times using the terms interchangeably. The study draws on written qualitative data from a wide range of participants. Tara assists with the teaching on a number of units for the FDSc in Funeral Services, putting her previous experience as a funeral dircetor in Oxfordshire and Scotland to excellent use. Publications: Bailey, T. (2010) Presentations: ‘Methodological issues in researching funeral goers in contemporary Britain’ ‘What is a funeral and who is it for?’ ‘Anthropological perspectives on the funeral’ ‘Interpreting the Contemporary Funeral’
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Liz Folkes Liz began her PhD in February 2012. Liz’s research focuses upon the experience of living and dying with a chronic illness. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is an incurable, progressive illness that is the fourth commonest cause of death worldwide. Patients with COPD have a heavy symptom burden of physical and psychological suffering not only from disabling breathlessness but also from pain, anxiety, depression and social isolation. The slow decline and unpredictability of the COPD trajectory places on additional burden on patients and their carers. People at advanced stages of COPD may survive many years with frequent exacerbations of their illness. Most palliative care models are based on identifying a clear time point for transition to end of life care however often COPD has no identifiable, coherent transition point. Unlike cancer that has a well aired public story, COPD remains a hidden personal narrative with no clear beginning and no clear end. This study aims to understand, from the perspective of patients and carers, key milestones in the transition of COPD from a way of life to a way of dying. Of particular interest is how long term carers experience grief and loss both pre and post bereavement. Liz has a BSc in Nursing from UWE and an MSc Sociology from University of Bristol where she worked for 10 years as a Research Assistant in the Department of Social Medicine.
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Beatrice Godwin My main focus considers whether there is continuity in the sense of self in advanced dementia. This will involve looking at communication and consultation in late dementia and may require finding ways of including the views of people with advanced dementia which do not privilege the spoken word. I am also interested in the social and medical construction of dementia and the influences of the psycho-social milieu and the (built) environment on the person with dementia's experience. Does the person with dementia internalise a view of him or herself which reflects the low social status of cognitively impaired individuals in our ‘hyper-cognitive’ society? What are the effects on communication, mood and sense of wellbeing? Additional interests include topics such as:
Research
I have completed two further research projects on:
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Conference presentations
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Gaelle Jolly Gaelle is in the second year of a part-time MPhil in the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, supervised by Dr Michael Forsyth and Professor Tony Walter. She previously completed a BA (Hons) in Sociology at the University of Reading and an MA in Cultural Heritage Studies at University College London. Gaelle’s research seeks to explore the value of historic cemeteries as landscapes of death and memory, in order to contribute to current conservation strategies. Historic conservation guidance emphasises the need to understand all aspects of the significance of historic sites before determining a conservation approach. The role of cemeteries as places of death was expressed through their landscape design, but their continued value as funerary landscapes depends on their perception and reception by contemporary visitors. Gaelle’s project focuses on the influence of changing attitudes to nature and to death, and on the impact of an evolving urban context, on the socially constructed meaning of cemeteries as funerary landscapes. Taking Oxford as a case study, the project combines a study of the evolution in character of its burial grounds with research into historic and contemporary perception of the sites by visitors. You can download an update from Gaelle which details her research to date here.
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Aliki Karapliagou Aliki's PhD thesis focuses upon bereavement in forcibly dislocated diasporas. In particular, the aim of the thesis is to highlight the differences that the factors of dislocation and trauma following coercive migration might introduce to bereavement. There is evidence in the trauma, Holocaust and postcolonial literature that diasporic groups who have lost their homelands while experiencing violent persecution, suffer intergenerational grief and melancholia which may compound subsequent experiences of bereavement, as well as help produce divergent responses to that grief. The bereavement literature fails to take into consideration dislocation and trauma as key factors to understanding bereavement in forcibly dislocated diasporas, and as a consequence it does not address the unique nature of grief in such contexts. Aliki’s study concentrates upon experiences of loss and bereavement in the Afro-Caribbean community in Britain. Specifically, it examines the legacy of slavery, postcolonialism and migration to England between 1948 and 1962, and the impact of these historical experiences have upon perceptions of loss, death and attitudes towards bereavement. Aliki has completed a BSc(Hons) in Sociology at Plymouth University, an MSc in Ethnicity and Multiculturalism at Bristol University and an MRes in Social Policy at Bath University. |
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Elizabeth Purcell Elizabeth started her MPhil/PhD at Bath in autumn 2009; her topic is how in contemporary Britain people live with their own mortality.
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Jana Roberts Disengagement, Social Death and the Fourth Age Some very old people consensually disengage from social activities and engagements; some disengage but find this incurs disapproval from significant others; others stay engaged until the end; others are forced into a 'social death' by the perceptions and judgements of others. This qualitative, grounded theory project seeks to identify the various ways that very old people choose or are forced to live their final years, the meanings they give to this, how events such as bereavement or a stroke can precipitate a radical shift in social engagment, and what might explain individual variations in response to such precipitating factors. Jana begins her PhD in September 2012 and will be supervised by Tony Water, Malcolm Johnson and Louise Brown.
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Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK Tel 01225 386949 | Email cdas@bath.ac.uk Last update: 15 May, 2012 © 2006 University of Bath |