ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on highlighting and exploring the sociological nature of disenfranchised grief. The notion of disenfranchised grief has become very well established in the professional literature relating to death, grief, and bereavement and is widely used by practitioners, educators, and researchers. The chapter offers a brief overview of some of the practice applications of the sociological concept of disenfranchised grief. Having seen how the concept of disenfranchised grief is not narrow or limited in its applicability, the chapter shows how it fits into a broader network of sociological concepts. Limitations of space mean that people shall restrict themselves to a consideration of just four such concepts – anomie, alienation, actor network theory, and social capital – from a potentially much longer list. The chapter explores a small number of ways in which the development can be pursued. This includes workplace losses; suffocated grief; forbidden grief; disenfranchised trauma; and non-death-related losses.
