ABSTRACT
The family is such an ingrained part of modern life that it tends to be taken for granted. From a traditional atomistic point of view, death and dying are seen as predominantly affecting individuals in families – that is, the family is seen as the backdrop, but the main focus is on the individuals. However, when we draw on the sociological imagination, we start to recognize that the situation is more complex than that. We can start to appreciate that death and dying affect not only individuals within families, but the actual family itself as a social institution – for example, in terms of the family dynamics (how sets of expectations or roles influence behavior and emotional responses, how power relations operate across the family group, whether the family pulls together or splits apart, and so on).
