Van Brussel, L. and Carpentier, N.(eds) The Social Construction of Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2014. ix + 278pp £55 (hbk) ISBN 978–1‐137–39190–2

Abstract

The character of this edited collection of chapters reflecting upon the socially constructed nature of the process of death and dying is bold, not least due to the numerous disciplinary backgrounds of the contributing authors, broadly considered to be in the social sciences. The central aim of this volume is ‘to put death and dying more explicitly on the (theoretical and analytical) agenda of social constructionism and social constructionist approaches in general’ (p. 1) The editors claim that previous ventures into this area have been somewhat inadequate, although the plethora of previous sociological works taking this approach to death, such as Lindsay Prior's (1989) The Social Organisation of Death, would perhaps challenge this assertion. In many ways Prior has already voiced the same criticism stating: ‘there is nothing new in thanatology’ (p. 5). Although the goals of this volume may be slightly less novel than they are positioned, this does not detract from its usefulness to anyone studying death and dying in its varying guises, nor does it detract from the novelty of the variety of disciplines that underpin the book. It is an interdisciplinary collection joined together by a shared positioning as social constructionist, although the contributors’ understandings of what this term means vary considerably. This volume contains 12 chapters reporting on the epistemological and theoretical considerations of a social constructionist approach to understanding perceptions of death. In this view, the process of death and dying are more than a mere physiological event defined by the cessation of electrical activity in the body. Death is positioned as innately social, located of course within the body but also beyond it, for example, within the imaginations of the public and the shared consciousness of families experiencing their loved one trapped in a liminal state where they are neither considered medically dead nor are they acceptably functioning as living (Kitzinger and Kitzinger). Many of the substantive topics of the volume concern the modern understanding of death, highlighting some key dichotomies that go beyond those identified by Ariès (1983), who discusses how understandings of death have developed from one of unavoidable acceptance, to one in which death has become hidden due to the medicalisation of the body and the necessity to know and to cure. In this volume, the authors use a social constructionist ontology to allow for multiple interpretations and understandings of death, where death and dying may be hidden – for example, in media portrayals of the post-mortem examination (Weber) – but also where there is a very public portrayal of debates surrounding the choice to die and the ethical considerations that arise from this (Ashton). Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this volume, many of the chapters have to situate the position the authors take in some detail, such as grounded theory and symbolic interactionism. While this is useful in allowing a wide-ranging audience to engage with the debates in the chapters, and while these discussions position the analysis taken later in each chapter, I am not convinced that they are necessary in such short chapters. Nonetheless, by including them, the volume is trying to achieve two goals. Firstly, and where this volume achieves a great deal, it aims to present research and ideas from a broad range of disciplines all joined by a related yet varied understanding of the social construction of death and dying. In this way it succeeds. In its varied chapters, one can get a useful summary of the history of previous research in the social sciences related to death and dying and many debates are resurrected, such as Ariès’ (1983) discussions on the hidden nature of death in modern society. The connectedness with the end-of-life care research tradition is lacking too often, and this is a missed opportunity to reconcile paradigmatic and epistemological differences. (p. 276) This volume offers social constructionism as an opportunity to positivist researchers, through its detailed methodological discussions, but does not reconcile the differences between the two. Although this secondary endeavour may not achieve its intended function, the volume itself must be considered a success because, as Árnason states, ‘death is socially constructed because society is deathly constructed’ (p. 200). In sum, by identifying the different ways in which death and dying is constructed, this volume emphasises how death, as an unavoidable consequence of living, influences the construction of society, through the multiple and collective perceptions and experiences of death.