Grief and mourning in Covid-19 pandemic and delayed business as a new concept

The measures, restrictions, and death-related rituals in the COVID-19 pandemic have affected the mourning-related routines of individuals. Moreover, mourning processes have been affected by the restriction of death-related cultural rituals, funeral ceremonies performed only by the officials, and the prohibition of visiting graves. This study aims to investigate the experiences of individuals who lost their loved ones in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic. For that purpose, the phenomenological method is employed in the design of the study. Individual interviews were conducted with nine participants who lost their relatives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected through semi-structured interview forms prepared by the researchers. The study participants described the various factors contributing to the grief and mourning process in the COVID-19 pandemic. These factors were categorized into three following main categories: grief and mourning responses of the individuals lost loved ones, including cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses;risk factors including the expectation of harm, unfinished business, and restriction of death-related religious-cultural rituals;and protective factors including relative support (i.e., family, spouse, friend, partner), tele-support (i.e., mobile phone, internet, social media), positive coping strategies (cognitive, behavioral, and religious-spiritual), and delayed business. The "delayed business” concept was also addressed within protective factors and explained in general terms. Finally, the findings were discussed considering the literature and presented some theoretical and practical implications.

Mourning and the capacity to be alone: Cultural and existential rituals in loss

When I began writing this paper, I was amid coping with several losses. I had lost a beloved friend and a family member to COVID-19, and though it seemed that we were coming out of the woods in the US, the juggernaut virus was burning through my native country of India, where most of my family lives. As a candidate starting analytic training in 2020, Freud's Mourning and Melancholia was particularly poignant as it lays the foundation for object relations borne out of a process of coping with loss. Freud described mourning as an agonizing process of identification, disinvestment and reinvestment. He emphasized the role of intrapsychic factors in the capacity to mourn. Since then, analysts have countered by writing about the highly social nature of the task of mourning and the importance in grieving of a loving communal embrace. In this paper, I explore one's early experiences with Winnicott's holding environment and transitional phenomena as an explanation of the capacity to mourn. I will extend mourning to another form of loss, namely, transience, i.e., temporariness of time and experience. Finally, I will consider how the developmental achievement of the capacity to be alone is inherent in specific intrapsychic modes of mourning transience and could be extended to intrapsychic capacity to mourn in bereavement. I will explore these ideas with a backdrop of traditional Indian rituals and spiritual practices, which embody and uniquely elaborate other essential Winnicottian features, including paradox, dialectics and the third area. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Last Honors and Life Experiences of Bereaved Families in the Context of COVID-19 in Kashmir: A Qualitative Inquiry About Exclusion, Family Trauma, and Other Issues.

This study examined the changing character of the last honours of those who died of COVID-19 in Kashmir and the life experiences of the families of the deceased. A semi-structured interview schedule was used to collect information from 21 participants. Using qualitative data analysis approaches, five key themes were identified vis-à-vis the impact of COVID-19 on burial rituals and customs; effects on bereaved families, shades of grief, bereavement care, community response, and coping with loss. Based on examining the pandemic-induced changes related to customs and rituals around death, the study found that the bereaved family members were in danger of marginalization, economic burdens, psychological traumas, and overall reduced quality of life. This study would be a credible addition to the existing literature on death practices as there is a shortage of research on funeral rituals during the post-pandemic period in Kashmir.

Hacia una sociedad aséptica. Modos de vida y politicidades pandémicas

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 was inscribed in our bodies and in our senses. The pandemic represented the reconfiguration of our times, rhythms, processes of subjectivation, socialization, and productivity, even the ways of conceiving the world as the cycles of life and the rituals of death. Although this event is due to biological and epidemiological factors, it has also been established as an operator that has produced discourses, practices, imaginations, and desires, where power flows and organizes new rearrangements in the condition of entropy, social terror, and the pandemic risk. The objective of this article was to analyze the new material and immaterial conditions that were reconfigured in civil society during the pandemic period as coping and resistance mechanisms aimed at safeguarding life in the health emergency condition. The first one delves into the ways in which we reconstitute ourselves as subjects, the relationship and organization of bodies with the habitat, and the emergence of new commercial relationships. In the immaterial dimension, discursive aspects such as discriminatory practices, the generation of new affects and the production of subjectivities are analyzed, such gestures and politicities are oriented to the continuity of the sustainability of life, however, they reveal contradictions, deficiencies, discriminatory processes and distinct types of violence that make up a new aseptic society.Alternate :La pandemia provocada por COVID-19 se inscribió en nuestros cuerpos y en nuestros sentidos. Habitar la pandemia representó la reconfiguración de nuestros tiempos, ritmos, procesos de subjetivación, socialización y productividad, formas de concebir el mundo, así como los ciclos de la vida y los rituales de la muerte. Aunque este acontecimiento se debe en gran parte a factores biológicos y epidemiológicos, también se ha constituido como un operador que ha producido discursos, prácticas, imaginarios y deseos, donde el poder fluye y maquina nuevos reordenamientos a la luz de la entropía, el terror social y el riesgo pandémico. En este artículo se tuvo como objetivo analizar los nuevos condicionamientos materiales e inmateriales que se reconfiguraron en la sociedad civil durante el marco temporal pandémico como mecanismos de afrontamiento y resistencia orientados al resguardo de la vida en la condición de emergencia sanitaria. En la dimensión material se profundiza en las formas en cómo nos reconstituimos como sujetos, la relación y organización de los cuerpos con el hábitat, y la emergencia de nuevas relaciones mercantiles. En la dimensión inmaterial se analizan los aspectos discursivos como las prácticas discriminatorias, la generación de nuevos afectos y la producción de subjetividades. Tales gestos y politicidades están orientados a la continuidad de la sostenibilidad de la vida, sin embargo, desocultan contradicciones, deficiencias, procesos discriminatorios y diversos tipos de violencia que confeccionan una nueva sociedad aséptica.Alternate :A pandemia provocada pela COVID-19 foi inscrita em nossos corpos e em nossos sentidos. Habitar a pandemia representou a reconfiguração de nossos tempos, ritmos, processos de subjetivação, socialização e produtividade, formas de conceber o mundo, assim como os ciclos da vida e os rituais da morte. Embora este evento seja em grande parte devido a fatores biológicos e epidemiológicos, ele também se constituiu como um operador que produziu discursos, práticas, imaginários e desejos, onde a energia flui e maquina novos rearranjos à luz da entropia, do terror social e do risco pandêmico. O objetivo deste artigo era analisar os novos fatores materiais e imateriais condicionantes que foram reconfigurados na sociedade civil durante o período da pandemia como mecanismos de enfrentamento e resistência destinados a salvaguardar a vida na emergência sanitária. Na dimensão material, as formas como nos reconstituímos como sujeitos, a relação e organização dos corpos com o habitat e o surgimento de novas relações mercantis são examinados em profundidade. A dimensão imaterial analisa aspectos discursivos, como práticas discriminatórias, a geração de novos efeitos e a produção de subjetividades. Tais gestos e politizações são orientados para a continuidade da sustentabilidade da vida;contudo, revelam contradições, deficiências, processos discriminatórios e vários tipos de violência que criam uma nova sociedade asséptica.

The Politics of Islamic Death Rituals in the COVID-19 Era: The Case of Egypt

Throughout the Islamic world, the era of COVID-19 has witnessed controversial changes to highly ritualised traditional Islamic funeral rites. To combat the pandemic in Egypt, the government and Al-Azhar implemented restrictions surrounding group prayer and burial which many Egyptians viewed as impinging on their religious duties as well as on their ability to mourn. Utilising participant observation, interviews, and deductive research, this article explores the social and anthropological ramifications involved in the modification of traditional Islamic burial rituals in the era of COVID-19 and the negotiations involved amongst different actors, looking specifically at cases in Egypt.

From Ritual Mourning to Solitary Grief: Reinterpretation of Hindu Death Rituals in India.

This paper considers the way the outbreak of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown has egregiously impeded the Hindu death ceremonies and mourning rituals in India. It makes a comparative analysis of how Hindu death rituals get renegotiated, modified and reinterpreted across two vastly different regions of India, both of which have their local customs. Whilst death rituals in India are contingent on the deceased's caste, community, class, gender and age, the impediment to the major death rituals creates a central conundrum for all mourners. It results from the substitution of 'sacred' ritual guidelines with new 'profane' ones for the 'disposal' of deceased COVID-19 patients. Departure from many significant pre-liminal rites, specific transition rites, and post-liminal rites has eschatological, ritual and cultural ramifications. The inability to grieve in unison during a Shraddh ceremony denies mourners any scope to quell distressing feelings about mortality which serves as a source of consolation.

Rituals of Containment: Many Pandemics, Body Politics, and Social Dramas During COVID-19 in Pakistan.

Infecting millions of people, causing around two million deaths, and affecting billions of people worldwide during January 2021, the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is not merely one pandemic but many. These many pandemics, which I identify herein, have revealed the overt and subtle entanglements among religion, science, and politics around COVID-19. Building on my current ethnographic research on COVID-19 using purposive sampling and interview guide in Pakistan, and borrowing from various anthropological concepts such as "social drama," proposed by Victor Turner, and ritual, I have developed a concept that I call rituals of containment. With this concept, I extend my previous argument regarding "symbolic ownership" to show a visible "body politics" by demonstrating how religion, science, and politics around COVID-19 are entangled at individual and government levels. This has become observable through the rituals of the Pakistani government of containment to deal with COVID-19. Such entanglements are visible in the case of strategies to tackle infected "viral bodies," as the government has enacted its authority: (1) to bury what I am terming the dead viral body without its beloved ones present; (2) to return or not to return this body to family members in a coffin; (3) or to provide the grieving family with a symbolic empty coffin. These Covidian politics have led to the question: Who in actuality owns the body? In conclusion, I argue that the problem lies in the discriminatory and contradictory rituals of containment of the government, not in using scientific evidence and guidelines.