Doctoral Dissertation Research: Crisis and community response in death and grieving practices

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。这个博士论文项目研究危机如何促使人们和社区改变照顾死者的方式。随着社会疏远协议禁止在新冠肺炎大流行期间举行亲自葬礼，人们的注意力集中在溢出的殡仪设施和修改后的哀悼仪式中使用科技。然而，对发生在医院或殡仪馆等典型场所之外的自然死亡护理做法的考虑要少得多。这一民族志研究项目考察了临终关怀提供者的工作，他们中的许多人是业余或准专业的照顾者，在临终过程中提供身体、情感和信息支持。这项研究通过考察自然死亡是否以及如何影响死亡的概念和哀悼过程，以及个人和社区属性如何与死亡护理相互作用来影响这些结果，从而推动了政治和医学人类学的理论。除了培训一名博士生外，这些发现还将广泛传播给不同的利益相关者和受众。具体地说，这项研究考察了新冠肺炎是如何影响处理和陷害死亡的其他方式的。它超越了对虚拟葬礼的典型强调，而是询问致力于自然死亡护理的个人和社区如何适应这场危机。这项研究询问(1)危机经历是否以及如何改变临终关怀，(2)这涉及什么仪式，(3)自然临终关怀如何在服务于悲痛社区的替代方案中定位，以及4)这些因素如何交叉影响死亡的概念和表达。这项研究是在具有不同替代做法的社区进行的，以了解社区一级的因素如何影响死亡护理的可获得性和概念。此外，这项研究还调查了个人的社会认同是否以及如何影响临终选择和结果，以提供对什么是好的死亡的定义变化的细微差别的理解。研究人员使用参与者观察、访谈、焦点小组和档案研究，在自然墓地集体的背景下，在临终关怀从业者、学生和临终关怀客户中进行研究。这项研究的结果提供了对大流行的不同经历的洞察，以及大流行在一些社区内引发的重大文化转变。这项研究有助于最近人类学的呼吁，通过探索外部照顾者的贡献来扩大对死亡的理解，并改善制度化的死亡体验。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).This doctoral dissertation project considers how a crisis has prompted changes in the ways people and communities care for their dead. With social distancing protocols prohibiting in-person funerals during the COVID-19 pandemic, much attention has focused on overflowing mortuary facilities and the use of technology in modified mourning rituals. However, far less consideration has been given to natural deathcare practices that take place outside of typical settings such as hospitals or funeral homes. This ethnographic research project examines the work of end-of-life care providers, many of whom are amateur or paraprofessional caregivers providing physical, emotional, and informational support during the dying process. The research advances theory in political and medical anthropology by examining whether and how natural deathcare affects concepts of death and the process of mourning and how individual and community attributes interact with deathcare to affect these outcomes. In addition to training a doctoral student, the findings will be disseminated broadly to diverse stakeholders and audiences. Specifically, this study examines how COVID-19 has impacted alternative ways of handling and framing death. It goes beyond a typical emphasis on virtual funerary practices to ask how individuals and communities committed to natural deathcare have adapted to the crisis. The research asks (1) whether and how experiences of crisis transform deathcare, (2) what rituals this involves, (3) how natural deathcare is positioned among alternatives to serve grieving communities, and 4) how these factors intersect to affect concepts and expressions of death. The study is being conducted in communities with diverse alternative practices to understand how community-level factors affect the availability and concepts of deathcare. Additionally, the research investigates whether and how individual social identity affects end-of-life choices and outcomes, to provide a nuanced understand of shifting definitions in what constitutes a good death. The investigators use participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and archival research among deathcare practitioners, students, and deathcare clients, and within the context of a natural cemetery collective. Findings from this research provide insight into diverse experiences of the pandemic and the significant cultural shifts the pandemic has inspired within some communities. This research contributes to recent anthropological calls to expand how death is understood and to improve institutionalized experiences of death by exploring the contributions of external caregivers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.