ABSTRACT
Death ruptures the social bonds that hold society together by tearing away its members. Various rituals must be performed and material artifacts constructed to re-integrate the deceased and bereaved into the social order. From the perspective of collective life, grief is experienced not only as an individual’s emotional reaction to loss but also publicly, in the first-person plural-we grieve for the loss of our group’s members. This is particularly apparent after terrorist attacks, school shootings, and the death of national figures. This chapter first outlines several classic theories that analyze public grief’s functions for the life of collectives, with particular emphasis on Durkheim’s perspective on the role of rituals in bringing social solidarity and stability in periods of change. However, grief can also be seen in the context of social conflict, where it plays out as an intergroup phenomenon. Thus, the second section explores grief in its political dimensions, how it can deepen social divisions by fostering fear and anger towards (imagined) others, identified as they, not us. Lastly, the chapter applies the ideas of the first two sections to the topic of memorials, which are the exemplary collective artifacts built to commemorate loss over extended periods of time.
