Bereavement Network Europe and Centre for Death and Society Webinar

Bereavement Network Europe and Centre for Death and Society Webinar

Thursday 5th March

5pm – 6pm GMT / 6pm – 7pm CET

Online

The impact of traumatic death on social networks: Reflecting on grief and bereavement support in the context of sudden deaths

Abstract:

When someone dies suddenly or unexpectedly, the impact on multiple individuals within a social network can be profound. This webinar makes a case for a more relational understanding of bereavement within this context of loss, arguing that such an approach helps us to recognise the value of one and other’s grief being acknowledged, validated and supported, and how loss is mediated between people.

Drawing on qualitative evidence generated from a three-year study into the impact of traumatic deaths on social networks, the webinar will explore the extent to which social networks bereaved by a sudden or traumatic death attempt to remedy public disenfranchisement and stigma (Doka, 1989; Guy and Holloway, 2007). Given that the majority of bereavement support is informal and carried out by close others (Jakoby, 2014; Logan et al, 2018), it will examine the ways in which grief is negotiated from multiple perspectives within a network and how any stigma is, or can be, mitigated.

This is a jointly organised webinar by Bereavement Network Europe and the Centre for Death and Society (CDAS) at the University of Bath. It is free to attend.

Speaker biography

Dr Georgie Akehurst is a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Her PhD thesis at the University of Sussex focused on grief negotiation among social networks following traumatic bereavement. Her current work in critical suicide studies focuses on how meanings of suicide are culturally embedded and negotiated, and how we can explore what it means to live a ‘liveable’ life.

Links to publications:

Out of the blue and into it: Autoethnography, emotions and complicated grief - Georgie Akehurst, Susie Scott, 2023

No-Body Relations and Negative Negotiations: Selfhood after Traumatic Loss (Chapter 9) - Interpreting Identities