Tag Archives: emotions

Understanding the social contexts of a family death

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We are pleased to share our most recent article published from our research with families in urban Senegal. In this article, we try to understand how people made sense of a family death, within the social contexts of their lives. We theorise this in terms of ‘meanings-in-context’, since meanings and contexts are inextricably bound up together and cannot be separated out: meanings are shaped by particular – local and global – contexts. Contexts are also shaped by the meanings through which people experience their life circumstances. We discuss how people made sense of the family death in relation to three main contexts: family, religion, and materiality.

Families are considered to be absolutely central to people’s lives, being the major source of support and security in precarious life circumstances. After a death, then, families were a key source of support and also of motivation, for the future of the family as a whole. When a family member died, it was the role they played in family life that was central to the sense of loss, and they were often described as ‘irreplaceable’ in these terms.

In relation to family and religion (primarily Sufi Islam) particularly, the death was understood very much as a key communal context for making sense of the death. It was only a minority of people who gave a medical cause of death, although others might refer to physical symptoms. Rather, detailed holistic accounts were often given, of events leading up to the death, and the idea that the death was ‘God’s Will’ was frequently mentioned. This idea provided many people with a significant basis for accepting the death, although sometimes this might also mean that ‘too many tears’ might be frowned upon as indicating an inability to accept God’s Will.

The third context that we discuss is materiality, and in particular we consider how emotions were bound up with the material consequences of the death, which could be severe. This particularly contrasts with ideas of affluent Minority worlds, where emotions are generally understood as something separate from material life.

For more in-depth discussion of these ‘meanings-in-context’, read our blogpost and article.

Interpréter le ‘chagrin’ et les émotions dans des contextes interculturels

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Dans notre article publié dans Mortality récemment, nous discutons le processus complexe de traduire et interpréter le ‘chagrin’ et les émotions dans des contextes multiculturels et interculturels.  Nos expériences d’une recherche qualitative menée en milieu urbain au Sénégal, Afrique de l’Ouest, démontrent l’importance d’impliquer les interprètes et les chercheurs sur le terrain dans tout le processus de recherche. Cela nous a permis d’avoir une connaissance approfondie des nuances culturelles des langues autochtones et de comprendre comment celles-ci sont traduites et potentiellement reformulées dans le processus.

Lire le blog post complet ici.

New blogpost on emotionally sensed knowledge

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Ruth Evans’ Methods in Motion blogpost shows how an approach of ‘uncomfortable reflexivity’ can help to reveal the work of emotions in cross-cultural research. Thanks to the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance, The Open University, for publishing this edited version of our original blogpost.

How can we produce emotionally sensed knowledge on death and bereavement?

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Doing research on ‘sensitive topics’, such as death and bereavement, can raise particular challenges for qualitative and cross-cultural researchers. This is often due to the deep emotions which may be evoked among both participants and researchers, and the ways that emotions are culturally produced. Our new blogpost reflects on the methodological complexities of producing ’emotionally-sensed knowledge’ about death and bereavement in our qualitative research in urban Senegal.  It summarises the key messages from our article published in the International Journal of Social Research Methodology.

Researchers meeting local facilitators in Kaolack, Senegal

Feedback and dissemination workshops

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Ruth and Fatou are currently doing feedback and dissemination workshops with young people and adults in Dakar and Kaolack. The workshops have been very useful in understanding more about the cultural significance of key phrases like ‘C’est dur’  and feeling ‘alone’ often used by participants when they talked about the emotional aspects of their relative’s death.  Ranking exercises have also highlighted key policy and practice priorities which will be discussed further with government, NGO representatives and religious and local leaders in seminars in Dakar and Kaolack.

Our paper at ECAS, Paris 8-10 July 2015

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Ruth recently presented a paper based on our findings entitled, Young people’s responses to the death of a relative: a vital conjuncture that complicates pathways out of ‘waithood’? at a panel session on ‘Pathways out of waithood: engaging with a repertoire of strategies’, convened by Jørgen Carling (Peace Research Institute Oslo) at the European Conference of African Studies in Paris. It was great to discuss our findings with other researchers working on youth in diverse contexts in Africa (see here for more details). Fatou also joined Ruth, Sophie and Jane in Paris for discussions about our analyses and also presented a well received paper on street children in Senegal at the conference.

Our paper at the Emotional Geographies conference

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Ruth recently presented a paper, ‘”Your tears are like pouring hot water on the body”: exploring religious and cultural influences on responses to death in urban Senegal’ in the Geographies of Faith, Spirituality and Religion session (organised by Claire Dwyer, Ruth Judge and Elizabeth Olsen) at the 5th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies. The paper focused on tears and the expression of emotions in responses to death in the family in urban Senegal, based on our preliminary findings. We also sought to interrogate our cultural assumptions about religious and cultural norms surrounding mourning and the expression of grief. We found it helpful to analyse our findings through the framings of emotional geographies and geographies of religion and received thoughtful questions and comments from colleagues.

Our analyses

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We are continuing with our analyses of the interview transcripts, writing summaries of each family and coding the transcripts with Nvivo. Our recent UK Advisory Group discussions were very valuable in helping us identify how our research can best contribute to current debates in death studies, youth in the global South, emotional geographies and geographies of religion. We’ll be developing conference papers on these themes in the coming weeks!

 

Read Ruth’s post about fieldwork in Senegal and other African countries

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Ruth recently wrote about her experiences of fieldwork for the SAGES Advice blog: Fieldwork, Gender and Careers: ‘In my experience, fieldwork is one of the most rewarding parts of the research process. My qualitative fieldwork with young people and families in Tanzania, Uganda, Senegal and Ghana as well as in the UK has enabled me to develop a deeper understanding of the dynamics and diversity of family life and the importance of reciprocity in caring relations and community support networks. I feel privileged to have been able to listen to people’s life stories, even if only for the duration of an in-depth interview….’

http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/sages-advice-fieldwork-gender-careers/2015/02/20/qualitative-fieldwork-in-tanzania-uganda-senegal-ghana-and-the-uk/