Governing Death and Loss Empowerment, Involvement and Participation

Political, economic, social, cultural and technological changes have led to profound transformations in the ways that death and loss are perceived and managed in contemporary society. Over the last few decades, the long term shift to chronic illness as a major causal factor has significantly increased the time scale of dying. Most people die in institutions and 'care' is typically medical. Many communities and ordinary citizens now relinquish control and involvement to experts in the last stages of life. At global and local levels, however, new arrangements are emerging to govern the changing face of death, and a reorientation model is being developed to counter claims of the 'creeping medicalisation' of death and dying. With an international authorship and scope, this book illustrates the interlinking nature of society, death and loss, and it gives examples of governance that promotes the empowerment, participation and the increasing need for the involvement of ordinary people and communities in differing social and cultural contexts. Chapters come from collaborations of academics and practitioners in end of life care - from sociologists, anthropologists or the arts but also from nursing, social work, or medicine. The result is a reflective, academic and practical discussion of the outline of the problem we face in the contemporary governance of death, and an exploration of the critical, theoretical and practice-based ways forward for us all.

Foreword, Professor Allan Kellehear
Introduction, Steve Conway
Part 1 - Theorising death and loss
1. Death and community, Margaret Gibson
2. Contemporary cultures of memorialisation: blending social inventiveness and conformity?, Jenny Hockey
3. (Un)Regulating bereavement, Arnar Arnason
4. Promoting the self through the arts: the transformation of private testimony into public witnessing, Naomi Richards
5. Involvement and empowerment at the end of life: overcoming the barriers, Peter Beresford and Suzy Croft
6. Reviving sociability in contemporary cultural practices and concepts of death in Hong Kong, Wing Hoi Chan
Part 2 - Principles into practice
7. The shameful death: implications for public health, Steve Conway
8. A history of the project on death in America: programmes, outputs, impacts, David Clark
9. Resilient communities, Allan Kellehear and Barbara Young
10. Transition from conventional to health promoting palliative care: an Australian case study, John Rosenberg and Patsy Yates
11. Neighbourhood network in palliative care - a public health approach to the care of the dying, Suresh Kumar
12. Liberating dying people and bereaved families from the oppression of death and loss in Chinese societies: a public health approach, Andy Hau Yan Ho and Cecilia Lai Wan Chan
13. Letting it out of the cage: death education and community involvement, Nigel Hartley
14. Spirituality and community practice, Bruce Rumbold, Fiona Gardner and Irene Nolan