Bethan Michael-Fox – författare

This book offers a comprehensive collection of seminal research into palliative care and hospice, providing an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of end-of-life care, hospice practices, and the care of the dying. Drawing on articles published in Mortality, an academic journal dedicated to the study of death, dying, grief, bereavement, and memorialization, the chapters span a wide range of international and institutional contexts. Together, they demonstrate the breadth and depth of research into end-of-life care practices, experiences, and settings, offering insights into the evolving field of palliative care.The volume opens with a preface that contextualizes the significant role Mortality has played in advancing research and understanding of palliative care both in the UK and internationally. From foundational works such as reflections on hospice care and the origins of St Christopher’s Hospice to contemporary studies on cultural humility in perinatal palliative care, the book explores critical themes including the evolution of palliative care, health-promoting social models, bi-cultural research approaches, and the challenges of providing care in diverse settings such as correctional facilities and low-income contexts.This book is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and students in fields such as palliative care, hospice care, social work, nursing, public health, and medical humanities. It also appeals to those interested in the broader subjects of death studies, grief, and bereavement.

This book examines the profound impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on how people experienced dying, death and bereavement from early 2020 onwards. This interdisciplinary collection draws together international examples rooted in empirical research from death studies scholars to make sense of these impacts. The collection includes a wide range of insights from how personal and societal responses to the pandemic shaped the ways people talked and thought about death, to the provision of palliative and intensive care, and changes in funerary practices. The book demonstrates how social responses to the pandemic shaped death in this historical moment and explores potential lasting legacies, such as altered rituals. Curated from articles originally published in the journal Mortality with a new preface by the editors, this collection showcases why death studies is crucial for understanding not only the COVID-19 pandemic but also future pandemics and mass death events.This volume will be essential reading for students, scholars, healthcare professionals, public health researchers and grief counsellors in medical anthropology, medical humanities, thanatology, sociology, bereavement studies and palliative care.The chapters in this book were originally published in Mortality.

This book brings together illuminating interviews with the most influential scholars who have shaped the interdisciplinary field of death studies. From sociological explorations to psychological frameworks, cultural analyses to digital age considerations, these conversations reveal the rich tapestry of approaches that have advanced our understanding of mortality, bereavement, and end-of-life experiences. Readers will discover how seminal works in death studies emerged, the critical role of academic and community networks, and the transformative power of examining death through diverse disciplinary lenses. The collection highlights both theoretical developments and practical applications, showcasing how scholars have navigated personal and professional boundaries while contributing to this sensitive yet vital area of study.This volume spans sociology, anthropology, psychology, cultural studies, digital humanities, and public engagement, making it an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in death studies, palliative care, counseling, funeral services, and related fields.The chapters in this volume were originally published in Mortality.

Institutions play a crucial role in shaping experiences of end-of-life care, dying, death, body disposal and bereavement. However, there has been little holistic or multidisciplinary research in this area, with studies typically focusing on individual settings such as hospitals and cemeteries, or being confined to specific disciplines.This interdisciplinary collection combines chapters on process, place and the past to examine the relationships both within and between institutions, institutionalization and death in international contexts.Of broad appeal to students and academics in areas including social policy, health sciences, sociology, psychology, anthropology, cultural studies, history and the wider humanities, this collection spans multiple disciplines to offer crucial insights into the end of life, body disposal, bereavement and mourning.

This book responds to a growing interest in death, dying and the dead within and beyond the field of death studies. The collection defines an understanding of ‘difficult death’ and examines the differences between death, dying and the dead, as well as exploring the ethical challenges of researching death in mediated form. The collection is attendant to the ways in which difficult deaths are imbricated in power structures both before and after they become mediatised in culture. As such, the work navigates the many political and social complexities and inequalities ­– what might be deemed the difficulties – of death, dying and the dead. The book seeks to expand understandings of the difficulty of death in media and culture through a wide range of chapters from different contexts focused on literature, film, television, and in online environments, as well as several chapters examining news reportage of difficult deaths.