Grief: Challenges to Death, Dying, Disposal and Grief in Corona Times

Abstract

Life, in many ways, is simply grief waiting to happen. It is the emotions of death – simultaneously something ordinary and universal as well as extraordinary and unique – that we try to capture and make sense of with the notion of ‘grief’. The so-called ‘corona pandemic’ that has spread throughout the world during the past 2–3 years is in many ways a crisis of global proportions that, at its very core, is caused by and concerned with the fear of death and dying from a deadly disease. So far, six million people have died in the corona pandemic. The ways we grieve and mourn our dead are indicative and informative of the society/culture in which we live and the values, norms and ideas that prevail within it. This chapter deals with the emotion and practice of grief as it is particularly related to experiences of death and dying in a contemporary Western corona-ridden society. I explore challenges relating to the display of emotions, ritual practice and ceremonial closure – as well as the paradoxical way in which the corona pandemic has inaugurated a new great disappearing act of death and grief at a time when death and grief have been paramount experiences for many affected people. Today, we know more about grief than at any other time in human history, but the question remains whether we have become any better at accepting it, dealing with it and living with it.

Citation

Jacobsen, M.H. (2023), "Grief: Challenges to Death, Dying, Disposal and Grief in Corona Times", Ward, P.R. and Foley, K. (Ed.) The Emerald Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions for a Post-Pandemic World, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 21-45. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80382-323-220231002