Utracona obecność. Doświadczenie żałoby po śmierci zwierzęcia towarzyszącego

Abstract


 
 
 Dying is one of the basic existential experiences which, at the most fundamental level, both connects and separates humans from the rest of animate nature. What they have in common is the biological dimension, while divisions occur at the cultural level. Within Western culture, based on the Christian religion, the death of an animal, seen as a soul-less being, is deprived of the sacred dimension and perceived as a biological act of cessation of all vital functions. This belief is contrasted with the perspective of companion animal caretakers, for whom the individual experience of going through the process of dying and the death of their pet can be a traumatic experience, comparable to the experience of the death of a human loved one. In this article, I consider the following: caretakers’ reac- tions to the loss, the specificity of the bond that affects grief, analogies between mourning after the death of a human and a pet, the role of ritual in the mourning process, strategies and ways of reorganizing the relationship with the deceased pet, and social attitudes faced by the caretakers in response to their grief, with particular emphasis on the phenomenon of disenfranchised grief. The text is based on ethnographic qualitative research focused on the caretakers’ experiences related to the disease and death of companion animals.