A social ontology of grief

Abstract

This article outlines a social ontology of grief. With the point of departure in a relational understanding of subjectivity and an intergenerational notion of death awareness, the author develops a nonessentialist and nonpathological understanding of the experience of losing part of oneself following the death of another. Losing part of oneself refers, on the one hand, to a shattered subject trying to understand and come to terms with the death of another and a shared lifeworld that is irremediably altered. On the other hand, the partiality of this loss implies that the surviving person is forced to struggle with the quandaries of living on. Thus, a social ontology of grief captures the irreducible and painful aspects related to the loss of significant others, as well as the ethical predicaments related to continued existence, which are not exempt from possibilities and hope.