ABSTRACT
This chapter explores consolation and religious meaning-making after a family death in the Muslim-majority context of urban Senegal. It discusses the findings of their qualitative research on responses to death, care and family relations in urban Senegal, where the vast majority of the population identify as Muslim. The chapter explores participants' narratives of the death of a relative and the role of co-presence and religious practices in enabling meaning-making and the expression of grief and continuing bonds, which provided consolation to bereaved family members. Both Muslim and Catholic families gave accounts of religious ceremonies to remember their relative on the anniversary of the death or on a special religious occasion. The co-presence of family and community members in the immediate aftermath of the death was crucial in helping to share their pain, provide practical and material support and provide consolation that enabled family members to 'keep going' and 'get by' in poor urban neighbourhoods.
