Family grief in cross-cultural perspective

Abstract

Although family systems theory challenges an individual focus on grief by providing conceptual tools for understanding the crucial importance of relational issues in bereavement, its totalizing language may seem to imply that bereavement is the same across cultures. It is not. We need to explore bereavement in families in diverse cultures – to make sense of unique aspects of grieving in those cultures, including the diverse cultures/ethnic groups in economically developed countries. Three examples of what might be gained from understanding specific relational grief phenomena from other cultures are offered: energy transfer in bereavement, the dead as active among the living and dangerous witches as causes of death. In addition, to understand grief in the family context across cultures, we must be sensitive to cultural differences in what is family and what is grief. Also, there is the question of whether family systems thinking makes sense in diverse cultures. The answer is ‘yes’, for many reasons, including that people in many cultures pay close attention to family matters.