Death Studies最新文献

This article explores the interconnections between perinatal death, collective action, and legislation against obstetric violence in Argentina. It employs a comprehensive methodological approach, including in-depth interviews, document reviews, a survey, and intensive ethnographic fieldwork to provide a multidimensional understanding of how collective actions influence legislative outcomes. Johanna Piferrer's case, a poignant example detailed in this study, illustrates how personal tragedy catalyzed public and legislative acknowledgement of obstetric violence. This article argues that her advocacy, coupled with the broader feminist movement's support, was crucial in transforming personal grief into a public issue that led to significant legislative changes. These changes include the creation of "Johanna's Law," which mandates improved hospital protocols and health professional training to handle perinatal deaths more sensitively and effectively. The study concludes that collective action is a powerful catalyst for creating transformative legislation that addresses the systemic issues of obstetric violence in Argentina.

Research on the funeral industry in the United States is limited by privatization and the dearth of publicly available data, making assessment of equitable services a challenge. The goal of this study was to explore the experiences of LGBTQIA+ deathcare providers and consumers to understand barriers to equitable services. We interviewed 23 funeral providers (N = 17) and consumers (N = 6) using a phenomenological approach and employed grounded theory to develop a deeper understanding from different perspectives that could inform more equitable practices. Results suggested that fear of religious rejection, LGBTQIA+ consumer preferences, and traditional funeral practice should be evaluated and addressed. Potential solutions may be explicit marketing and safety signaling, deathcare provider involvement in LGBTQIA+ communities, and sweeping equality legislation.

This study is a qualitative analysis of 14 interviews with specialists in maternal-fetal medicine in Israel who implement feticide by injection at a late stage of pregnancy. The goal of this study was to reach an interpretive understanding of the physicians' experience. The study focuses on five major themes: (1) involvement in the decision-making process; (2) emotional control and medical expertise; (3) perception of feticide as dirty work; (4) strategies to minimize the procedure's inherent difficulty; and (5) the social and medical context of silence and silencing. The revealed themes capture the timeline of the procedure and address the individual, dyadic, and medical and social contexts in which feticide is carried out - all of which construct the physician's experience. The concept of moral uncertainty is useful in conceptualizing the physicians' experience, allowing researcher to draw policy and practical implications.

Parents who have lost their only child and cannot or do not wish to adopt or have another child are labeled Shidu parents. Network analysis is used to examine symptom-level interactions in mental disorders. This study aimed to investigate the comorbidity network structure of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) and anxiety symptoms among Shidu parents and compare network differences between child loss from natural and unnatural causes. Key findings revealed that faintness, feeling afraid, panic, and meaninglessness are central symptoms, while meaninglessness, inability to trust others, and nightmares are bridge symptoms. The strongest connection in the PGD-anxiety network is between avoidance and shock, and the edge between meaninglessness and weakness strongly links the two communities. Shidu parents who experience unnatural loss have a stronger edge between inability to trust others and bitterness/anger. Highlighting these symptoms may help interventions address the comorbidities associated with PGD and anxiety among Shidu parents.

The aim of this study was to examine the case of altruistic kidney donation (AKD) following loss, in light of PTG theory. Loss may facilitate trauma alongside post-traumatic growth (PTG). Although much is known about the motivation for AKD in general, less is known about the motives of bereaved individuals who chose to altruistically donate their kidney post-loss. Employing a narrative approach, 10 bereaved individuals who altruistically donated a kidney were interviewed about their perceptions of the connection between the loss and their decision to donate a kidney post-loss. Content analysis revealed three types of bereaved AKD's perceived connection between the loss and the donation: explicitly direct, indirect, and implicit. Donation post-loss was characterized by aspects of PTG in three domains: self, other and worldviews. The findings are discussed in light of PTG theory and highlight the possible role of AKD in processes of coping and growth following grief.

On April 18, 2015, a fishing vessel was shipwrecked between Libya and Italy. The tragedy was the result of Italian and European border policies. More than 1,100 people (from across Africa and the Indian subcontinent) lost their lives in the vessel, making it the largest recorded civilian massacre to have occurred in the Mediterranean Sea. Beyond the huge number of dead, what distinguishes the shipwreck are the processes of the "translation" of its human and material remains, involving their displacement, material transformation and re-signification. In this paper, I summarize these processes in four stages, intertwining the vessel and the bodies of those who died inside it: their exhumation, naming, wake (whether artistic or forensic) and, finally, burial. By analyzing the work of translating the boat and bodies, and exploring what can be expressed through their different materialities, I show their intense social and political life, which led various actors involved to claim ownership over mourning. By delineating the mirrored relationship between the bodies and the boat, this article demonstrates the contribution death studies can make to the analysis of migration debris on the one hand, and, on the other, how tracing the social life of boats in the aftermath of migrant shipwrecks can enrich an analysis of the political life of border deaths.

One of the strategies used by Spanish hospitals to address gestational and perinatal mourning is the "memory box." This box contains various elements that refer to the child who has died and seeks to help parents to move through the mourning process. This secular strategy has its historical roots in a popular ritual practice that has fallen into disuse called the "velorio del angelito" (the angel's wake). The purpose of this article is to analyze the role that the memory box plays in addressing mourning associated with perinatal or gestational death for affected families, highlighting how it aligns with and represents a departure from the angel's wake. Using a qualitative methodology that includes the analysis of hospital protocols-guidelines, interviews with key informants and a literature review, the authors demonstrate the similarities and differences that each one of these practices configures at the symbolic, material and social levels.

Documentary archives, human remains, and witness testimony are often critical to transitional justice court proceedings and peace-building projects after mass violence. But what happens when those forms of evidence are missing? Can art stand in for the dead? Considering the use of art in Vann Nath's testimony in the trial of Kaing Guek Eav (Duch) in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, in this paper, I argue that in the first case for the ECCC, Vann Nath's art performed a similar role to that of human remains in other trials, providing evidence and proof of human rights violations including torture, cruel and inhuman treatment, arbitrary detention, and mass killing, while also activating affect (drawing on Hughes). As such, it provided a form of social proof, in a way similar to the human remains retained from the genocide and displayed across Cambodia. Both human remains and art draw on materiality and emotion as a means of proving violence. Positioning it as such prompts a reconsideration of the role of art in transitional justice: as well as being needed in cases where other visual evidence does not exist, art, with its ability to mobilize and communicate linguistically incommunicable affect, can be part of the evidentiary infrastructure in and of itself. Considering the place of art in trials after mass violence makes us rethink what evidence is and does. Ultimately, my argument is that to those who survive genocide or other mass violence social proof of atrocities, as provided by art, is as important as evidence deemed legally admissible to court.

This paper examines the aftermath of the Philippine government's anti-drug campaign under President Rodrigo Duterte, focusing on the impact on families of victims of extrajudicial killings (EJKs). Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Manila, the research explores how these families navigate loss and attempt to reclaim dignity and humanity for their loved ones. The study reveals the formation of a community of "necro-activists" comprising journalists, religious figures, and medical professionals who support victims' families in seeking justice and remembrance. Through interviews with photojournalists and victims' families. This paper highlights the transformative role of human remains in asserting the victims' agency beyond death. The research shows how forensic processes and religious rituals contribute to the reclamation of individual identities and challenge the state's dehumanizing narratives. By examining the evolving meanings of EJK victims' remains, this study sheds light on the broader socio-political implications of state violence and memory-making in the Philippines. The analysis situates this research within a global context of human rights and memory studies, drawing parallels with other regions affected by state-sponsored violence. Ultimately, this paper argues that the remains of EJK victims serve as powerful symbols that challenge state impunity and embody the resilience of communities seeking accountability and dignity amid pervasive violence.