Includes bibliographical references and index

Theorizing death and loss. Death and community / Margaret Gibson ; Contemporary cultures of memorialization : blending social inventiveness and conformity? / Jenny Hockey ; (Un)regulating bereavement / Arnar Árnason ; Promoting the self through the arts : the transformation of private testimony into public witnessing / Naomi Richards ; Involvement and empowerment at the end of life : overcoming the barriers / Peter Beresford and Suzy Croft ; Reviving sociability in contemporary cultural practices and concepts of death in Hong Kong / Wing-hoi Chan -- Principles into practice. The shameful death : implications for public health / Steve Conway ; A history of the Project on Death in America : programmes, outputs, impacts / David Clark ; Resilient communities / Allan Kellehear and Barbara Young ; Transition from conventional to health-promoting palliative care : an Australian case study / John Rosenberg and Patsy Yates ; Neighbourhood Network in Palliative Care : a public health approach to the care of the dying / Suresh Kumar ; Liberating dying people and bereaved families from the oppression of death and loss in Chinese societies : a public health approach / Andy Hau Yan Ho and Cecilia Lai Wan Chan ; Letting it out of the cage : death education and community involvement / Nigel Hartley ; Spirituality and community practice / Bruce Rumbold, Fiona Gardner, and Irene Nolan

"Political, economic, social, cultural, and technological changes have led to profound transformation in the ways that death and loss are perceived and managed in contemporary society. Over the last few decades, the long-term shift to chronic illness as a major causal factor has significantly increased the timescale of dying. Most people die in institutions and 'care' is typically medical. Many communities and ordinary citizens now relinquish control and involvement to experts in the last stages of life. At global and local levels, however, new institutional arrangements are emerging to govern the changing face of death, and a reorientation model is being developed to counter claims of the 'creeping medicalization' of death and dying. With an international authorship and scope, the book illustrates the interlinking nature of society, death, and loss, and the increasing need for the involvement of ordinary people and communities in differing social and cultural contexts. Chapters come from collaborations of academics and practitioners in end-of-life care--from sociologists and anthropologists and those in the arts, nursing, social work, and medicine. The result is a reflective, academic, and practical discussion of the outline of the problem that we face in the contemporary governance of death, and an exploration of the critical, theoretical, and practice-based ways forward for us all"--Publisher's description, p. [4] of cover

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