'The Social Facts of Death'

Davies, Douglas J.

Abstract

All societies use their cultural values to transform bare biological facts of life including death and emotion into images and motifs representing ideals which sociologists sometimes call ‘social facts’ (Thomas 1976: 158). In this chapter, three different perspectives are taken towards contemporary British ideas of death and emotion, firstly through the eyes of the media which have given death a high profile, secondly through surveys of people’s actual experience, and thirdly through an anthropological analysis of the process of cremation and of grief.

Citation

Davies, D. J. (1995). 'The Social Facts of Death'. In G. Howarth, & P. Jupp (Eds.), Contemporary Issues in the Sociology of Death, Dying and Disposal (17-29). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24303-7_2

• Online Publication Date: Jul 27, 2016
• Publication Date: Nov 20, 1995
• Deposit Date: May 5, 2025
• Pages: 17-29
• Book Title: Contemporary Issues in the Sociology of Death, Dying and Disposal
• Chapter Number: 2
• ISBN: 9780312127428
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24303-7_2
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3931899
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-24303-7
• Additional Information: This book utilises a dynamic analysis of mortality to acknowledge shifts of emphasis in cultural and religious traditions. A central concern is the diversity of representations of death to be found within the varying cultural, religious, medical and legal systems of contemporary western societies. Since the construction of death mores has social implications, a major element of the book is an examination of the way in which groups and individuals employ specific representations of mortality in order to generate meaning and purpose for life and death.