Grief participation rights and the social support hierarchy: Exploring the communicative role of the bereaved in a social support interaction

Abstract

This article explores how bereaved individuals co-construct social support and social norms in the social interaction of 14 bereavement group meetings in Denmark. To study this, we used a discourse analytical approach focusing on how the participants position their social supporters. The results show that the participants designate, uphold, and presuppose two hierarchical positions to bereaved and non-bereaved supporters with different abilities to understand them. Based on this finding, the concepts of “grief participation rights” and “social support hierarchy” are proposed to supplement existing notions of “rights to grieve” and “grief hierarchy.” These concepts suggest that non-bereaved supporters are not accorded the same participatory rights in social support conversations as bereaved individuals who have suffered a similar loss as the speaker. The concepts are discussed in relation to effective social support and in the context of research on social disconnection in grief.