How Funerals accomplish Family: Findings from a Mass-Observation Study. Transl. from Eng. by A.A. Zaitseva, Yu.A. Ivanova

Abstract

This article analyzes how potentially conflicting frames of grief and family operate in a number of English funerals. The data come from the 2010 Mass-Observation directive “Going to Funerals” which asked its panel of correspondents to write about the most recent funeral they attended. In their writings, grief is displayed through conventional conceptions of family. Drawing on Randall Collins, we show how the funeral divides mourners into family or nonfamily, with such differentiation occurring through outward display and internal feelings. The funerals described were more about a very traditional notion of family than about grief; family trumped grief, or at least provided the frame through which grief could be described. Funerals were portrayed as a distinct arena privileging family over fluid and varied personal attachments. They are described both in terms of the new sociology of personal life and through the concept of disenfranchised grief.