Funeral worlds, bereaved families and COVID-19

The Covid-19 pandemic confronts us with an unprecedented health and social crisis. It is disrupting the funeral system, and in particular funerals. Unlike mortality crises linked to a disaster or epidemic, here it is all deaths on the territory of a state that are affected due to containment. The aim of this program is to document as quickly as possible the arrangements proposed by funeral professionals at the time of the crisis, in line with the constraints of pandemic management, in three distinct countries: France, Switzerland and Italy. The aim is also to assess the impact (material and psychological) of these adjustments on bereaved families, and to analyze as best we can the inventiveness they have shown in coping with this singular situation.

Funeral professionals in France, Switzerland and Italy

This program therefore proposes to follow not only the crisis itself, but also its aftermath and the months that follow, in order to report on the practices, arbitrations, adjustments, innovations and possible conflicts arising from these situations. A qualitative approach has been adopted, in compliance with the ethical principles in force; it is based on an ethnography - observations, formal and informal interviews - of the practices of funeral directors, morgues, crematoria and cemeteries during the time of crisis; interviews with members of families affected by the reorganization of funerals are also planned. The research program is based on the hypothesis that, given the extent and duration of this health crisis, the consequences in terms of funeral arrangements will require - and already require - a collective, co-constructed response that takes into account the recognition and securing of professional practices, the management of bodies in accordance with both health and social recommendations, and funeral rituals at the time of death and in the months that follow. In this sense, this project is experimental and doubly original: on the one hand, it proposes to collect practices in a crisis situation and to question them, in particular on the ethical issues that this reveals; on the other hand, it makes it possible to collect totally new data that will facilitate feedback and feed into the thinking of public health bodies on the social issues involved in a pandemic, for the funeral sector in particular.

Research team

Gaëlle Clavandier, coordination, Univ Lyon, Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Etienne (CMW, UMR 5382)gaelle.clavandier@univ-st-etienne.fr

Marc-Antoine Berthod, coordination, Haute école de travail social et de la santé Lausanne (HETSL | HES-SO) marc-antoine.berthod@hetsl.ch

Philippe Charrier, CMW (UMR 5382) - philippe.charrier@msh-lse.fr

Martin Julier-Costes, CMW (UMR 5382) - julier.martin@gmail.com

Veronica Pagnamenta, HETSL | HES-SO - veronica.pagnamenta@hetsl.ch

Alexandre Pillonel, HETSL | HES-SO - alexandre.pillonel@hetsl.ch