ABSTRACT
Turning psychology on its head, anthropology starts with the outward, socially sanctioned, expression of grief. In this chapter, the authors move from what goes on inside the head of the bereaved individual to widely-shared attitudes and practices surrounding death within whole societies or, more commonly, sub-groups within those societies. At an even more general level, there’s a crucial connection between grief and culture, the human-made part of the environment which includes language, belief systems, social practices and patterns, and social norms. During the nineteenth century, grief was regarded as a condition of the human soul or spirit rather than of the body; in this sense, it could neither be normalised nor medicalised. The manifestations and duration of any one member’s grief may be quite different from those of another. The moment grief is expressed, it becomes mourning: death can only be experienced within a cultural context and grief can only be felt and expressed within cultural guidelines and expectations.
