Closing in on death? Reflections on research and researchers in the field of death and dying

Abstract

This paper provides a critical overview of recent arguments within the field of research on death and dying. In so doing, it explores reasons for researchers choosing to work in this area, and how these might relate to questions of personal experience and the wider cultural and social contexts of researchers’ everyday lives. It discusses not only the sequestration of death thesis, but also arguments which suggest there has been a revival of Romanticism associated with the maintenance of bonds between the living and the death. Finally, it explores the critique that the anomic terror arguably associated with death, has been assumed rather than examined.

Key Words:

• Sociology
• sequestration
• reflexivity
• Romanticism
• death
• bereavement