ABSTRACT
Adopting a cultural perspective, this chapter explores how responses to death and loss, particularly how people continue their relationships with those who have died, shed light on identity, agency, and social participation. By looking across cultures at an experience that threatens identity and continuity, a broader, more in-depth, complex, and nuanced picture of continuing bonds emerges. The chapter considers the implications of an emphasis on individualism in Britain and interdependency in Japan for recovering identity in each context by focusing on societies with contrasting models of identity. Drawing on qualitative interviews with British and Japanese mourners, the chapter illustrates the importance of continuing bonds with deceased loved ones for recovering identity. The chapter also illustrates people's creative agency in adapting cultural scripts to accommodate such experiences, repair identities, and continue bonds. It analyzes data from two successive interview studies, the first conducted in Britain and the second in Japan through cross-cultural comparison.
