Organized rituals – ritualized reflection. On mourning culture in palliative care units and hospices

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although modern societies are often portrayed as increasingly ritually impoverished, practices described as ritualised are ubiquitous in hospices and palliative care units. In this contribution, we set out to enquire into the function fulfilled by rituals in the context of organised end of life care. We draw on interview material from the research project “About ‘Good Dying’. Actor Constellations, Normative Patterns, Different Perspectives”. 1 While classical theories of rituality and the palliative care literature tend to see the function of rituals as the creation of cohesion and the healing of social ruptures, we draw on a functionalist approach to argue that forms of organised rituality serve to bring a retarding moment of reflexivity into organisational work routine. Such pauses work to counteract suspicions that organisations providing end of life care are simply engaged in the bureaucratic management of death. What we want to call reflexivity rituals thus proves essential for the communicative construction of a ‘good death’ in palliative care. These rituals enable ritualised reflection that then in turn creates a legitimate routine for the organisation by interrupting these routines and concealing their organisational form. The function of these reflexivity rituals is to provide latencies paradoxically by institutionalising reflexivity.