Death and the search for meaning: canonical, utilitarian and expressive thanatological cultural niches

Abstract

The bafflement, suffering and moral paradox that often surround death fuel the human search for meaning. Whereas traditionally religions provided meaning in the face of death, due to secularisation and rationalisation this search for meaning has increasingly become an individual project. We argue that in this process, people derive meaning from death-related cultural affordances. We define these as the opportunities for perception and action that are offered by culturally embedded meanings concerning death and dying that are embodied by observable carriers of meaning. They are grouped together in thanatological cultural niches: more or less consistent sets of mutually supporting death-related cultural affordances. We distinguish three thanatological cultural niches, based on differences both in mechanisms for selecting meaning and in content of meaning: a canonical niche (consisting of affordances grounded in religious authority and established tradition), utilitarian niche (consisting of affordances grounded in rational and utilitarian reasoning) and expressive niche (consisting of affordances grounded in authentic self-expression). Qualitative analysis of Dutch newspaper articles portraying people confronted with approaching death shows that they applied death-related cultural affordances from different cultural niches. Application of death-related cultural affordances stemming from different cultural niches may lead to personal conceptions of death that are mutually inconsistent.