1

Grief and mourning as social

constructs: Are emotions

culturally relative?

2

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to examine if grief and mourning, as conceptualised in the

West, are to be understood as natural psychological reactions to bereavement.

Sigmund Freud’s theory of the dynamics of the mind will be considered in detail,

alongside a discussion of how these innovations have affected Western viewpoints,

emotions and mourning over the course of modernisation. Subsequent examinations

of grief and mourning in non-Western contexts will show how these differ

considerably from the concepts and experiences in the West. This will be followed by

a consideration of whether these differences can be understood by applying Freud’s

psychoanalytic theory of unconscious drives and sublimation. The discussion will

then turn to an examination of the various forms of mourning to deduce whether

differences are simply alternative ways to resolve universally experienced grief or

whether these have to be understood in local terms. This thesis will demonstrate how

grief and mourning are connected in complex ways to the conceptualisation of

personhood and social realities. The drawn conclusion will be that variations in grief

and mourning between Western and non-Western cultures are to be understood

through differences in the composition of society and the self rather than by

appropriations of psychoanalytic theories as developed by Freud in a Western context.

3

Table of Content Introduction...............................................................................................................1

• Introduction • Methodology • Literature Review

1) Western psychology and individualism……......................................................11 • Freud’s legacy • The ‘psychologising process’ • Impact on mourning • Conclusion

2) Do Western ideas about grief and mourning, specifically detailed by Freud, manifest themselves in other cultures?...............................................24

• The Yucatec Maya women • The Kaluli • The ‘work of culture’ • The Sora • Conclusion

3) A stronger sense of self in modern Western society has dramatically shaped our conceptualisation and experience of grief and mourning.................39

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………........43

Bibliography.................................................................................................................47

4

Introduction

Introduction

This dissertation attempts to determine if grief, as a set of experienced emotions, and

mourning as a response to these emotions, as specifically detailed by Sigmund Freud,

can or cannot be translated from its Western context to non-Western contexts where

its proposition does not accord to the cultural cosmology of the West. Grief is thereby

considered as the response to the involuntary loss, through death, of a person who is

viewed as significant by the actor of reference (Lofland 1985: 172). Mourning is

defined as the action taken to resolve this response. While keeping in mind that the

response to a death is certainly a variable within particular societies, of exclusive

consideration in this dissertation is the apparent discrepancy between Western society

and non-Western societies. Western society is referred to as those areas in the World

where Freud has had a significant impact on the way people think of and perceive

grief, which, to a large extent, is Euro-American society. Western culture is treated as

the “framework of beliefs, expressive symbols and values” (Geertz 1973 in Lofland

1985: 177) that have been affected by both Freud and rationalisation, as outlined by

Max Weber, and by which individuals define themselves and “their world, express

their feelings and make their judgements” (Ibid, 177). The aim of this thesis is to

demonstrate that grief in non-Western societies follows its own belief systems, having

specific social symbols and values attached, which consequently causes grief to be

perceived and expressed differently to Western societies.

5

Freud’s innovation of psychoanalysis at the turn of the twentieth century adopted the

principles of Darwin’s evolutionary concept to construct a theory of the

psychodynamics of the brain. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory essentially contends that

humans have unconscious natural drives and desires that need to be expressed. In this

theory, emotions are not only regarded as natural but also as the result of the dynamic

interplay of consciousness and unconsciousness. Yet, explored here will be the

possibility that Freud’s theory was able to gain popularity as a result of wider cultural

changes at the time and was henceforth successful in transforming Western thoughts

and emotions. The central argument of this thesis is the viewpoint that applying this

theory to the analysis of emotions in non-Western cultures ignores the fact that these

are, just as much as in Western society, a part and result of the wider local cosmology

and must be conceptualised within such.

In Freud’s theory, the expression of emotions is a standard concept and ought to have

a therapeutic (cathartic) effect on the individual’s emotions. Freud thus contends that

mourning is a natural response to grief. This dissertation will first outline specific

parts of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and then show how this, in tandem with the

wider cultural changes, was able to successfully transform emotional experiences and

responses to grief in Western society. In the second chapter, the experience of grief in

a non-Western context will be explored and how deeply this affects grief and

mourning. First, the focus will be on how differently the experience of death and

grief is conceptualised in non-Western cultures and what implications this has,

drawing from two different non-Western contexts, on the understanding and

expression of grief. It will thereby be demonstrated that grief is not universally

6

conceptualised as a psychological event, and second, that grief is a part of wider

cultural concepts and social relationships.

The analysis following this develops out of a conflicted translation of Freud’s

psychoanalysis and discusses whether, despite cultural variation of grief and

mourning, non-Western experiences of grief and mourning can be conceptualised

from and translated into a Western perspective. By using Obeyesekere’s idea of the

‘work of culture’, it is demonstrated how this could be achieved without

compromising cultural concepts.

The third chapter, however, takes the discussion further to touch upon wider cultural

differences such as differences in the cultural concepts of personhood between non-

Western and Western societies and henceforth suggests an alternative to

Obeyesekere’s ‘work of culture’ theory.

7

Methodology

The research for this dissertation is exclusively literature based. Since the initial idea

was to study how Freud’s theories have affected modern psychological thinking and

how that compares to other cultures’ perceptions, the starting point for this thesis was

Freud’s psychoanalytical theory. Literature written by Freud1 and material published

on the significance that Freud has had on Western culture was used to obtain

information on the impact that his ideas have had on Western society. The research

for this thesis was thus predominantly library and electronic journal based, mostly

from sources in the literature of anthropology and psychology.

Since the focus of this thesis was to be on the concept of grief and mourning and how

that is perceived across cultures, research into non-Western cultures began through

the ideas gathered from ‘Dialogues with the Dead’ by Pier Vitebsky (1993). This led

to a contemplation of the theoretical propositions of emotions, and more specifically

grief, and how these are to be understood in a non-Western context. Books and

journals, specifically designated to a variety of theories, both in the anthropology and

psychology of emotions, were used to get accustomed to the literature. Catherine

Lutz and Geoffrey White’s journal article ‘The Anthropology of Emotions’ (1986) and

Michael Lewis and Haviland-Jones’s edited book ‘Handbook of Emotions’ (2004)

were particularly helpful to get an overall picture of whether emotions can or cannot

be translated cross-culturally.

1 More specifically, Freud’s ‘Introductory Lecture on Psycho-Analysis’ ([1920] 1966).

8

The broad range of theoretical propositions about how emotions are to be understood

across cultures, in the psychological and anthropological literature, however, meant

that certain propositions had to be discarded to achieve a more focused discussion on

the topic. Although case studies on grief and mourning in the anthropological

literature were relatively limited, the introductory literature often provided further

case studies and theories. The propositions in these different case studies essentially

helped shape the argument of the following thesis.

9

Literature Review

Specificity and unity of emotions are commonly assumed. These assumptions,

however, are not necessarily correct nor are they commonly held. Outlined here is

how the concept of emotions, specifically in relation to grief, differs across the

literature. Cross-cultural psychologists (Rosenblatt et al 1976) hold the view that

emotions in their essence can ultimately be translated across cultures from their

Western context, due to an alleged psychic unity. However, it has been acknowledged

more recently that this is reductionist when considering that people outside the

Western framework perceive themselves and their emotions differently.

Emotional unity

The psychic unity doctrine asserts that, “all humans, independent of culture, share the

same basic psychological characteristics” (Shore 1995: 311). Cultural heterogeneity in

the expression of emotions, from this viewpoint, is ultimately linked back to

psychological processes, which are believed to be identical cross-culturally.

Rosenblatt, Walsh and Jackson (1976), conducted a study in which emotions were

presumed to differ in their manifestation but not in their internal experience. In their

book ‘Grief and Mourning in cross-cultural perspective’ (1976), grief and mourning

are presumed as innate responses to bereavement2, influenced by culture only in as far

as beliefs, meanings and values manipulate perceptions. The book examines 186

world cultures and their diverse reactions to bereavement. The authors regard

“sadness, anger, fear, anxiety, guilt, loneliness, numbness, and general tension”

2 Bereavement refers to the death of a significant other.

10

(Rosenblatt et al. 1976: 6) as the general emotional responses to bereavement. These

emotions, they contend are then ‘worked through’ in accordance with the local

cultural setting. Rosenblatt, Walsh and Douglas (1976) contend that resultantly “a

dead person, over the cycle of death ceremonies, is passed from the land of the living

to the land of the dead; a bereaved person is passed from the state of mourner to the

state of nonmourner” (1976: 7). Hence, death ceremonies, benefit not the dead but

foremost the living. George Pollock (1972) suggests that such rituals may constitute

part of a “culturally constituted defensive system”, helping the bereaved person to

deal with a universally experienced personal crisis (in Kracke 1988: 209). This

implies that cultures with extensive mourning practices are perhaps better adapted to

resolving grief. Mourning rituals are, however, not the only way to mourn. According

to Rosenblatt, Walsh and Douglas (1976), crying is an almost universal reaction to

bereavement, thought to depict a common perception of certain emotions during

bereavement. Their behaviouralist approach adopted does, however, give little insight

into the private sphere of grief and mourning, since what is portrayed on the outside,

may not be an accurate reflection of the inner emotions of individuals.

Throughout the book comparisons are made between cultures, most notably how the

secluded grief and mourning practices of Americans differs to grieving practices in

other cultures. For example, in Muslim Balinese culture, people are reserved about

grief and mourning but their reasons differ to those in American culture. Whereas

Americans generally promote the private expression of emotions, the Balinese are

said to control their grief because their belief system encourages people to remain

calm and undisturbed (Rosenblatt et al. 1976). Although Rosenblatt, Walsh and

Douglas (1976) recognise that local concepts and ideology have a considerable

influence on how emotions are perceived and thus responded to, they do not consider

11

these beliefs and ideas to have an effect on the grief experience itself. The emotions

involved in grief are perceived as innate responses to bereavement, which some

cultures encourage to be portrayed publicly while others expect to be subdued. Ekman

(1992) has a similar outlook, viewing emotions as reflective of instinctive biological

mechanisms, which to a large part only differ in the way in which these emotions are

expressed. He contends that expression ultimately reflects the cultural display rules,

which are internalised and thus become automatic responses (Ekman, 1992: 35).

Ekman (1992) depicts humans as actors within cultures that necessitate some

emotions to be concealed and others to be expressed overtly. Ekman (1992) thereby

contends that emotions are essentially alien to society and influenced by it only in its

expressive form. This presupposes a dualism between emotions and expression, and

the inner self and the social person, which may be difficult to superimpose in contexts

where such distinctions do not exist.

A cultural/social model

According to Lutz (1988), Jean Briggs, who lived among the Utku Inuit of the

Canadian Northwest Territory for seventeen months, was the “first anthropologist to

demonstrate that learning about the emotional worlds of other societies involves more

than the simple one-to-one matching of emotion vocabularies between languages” (5).

Briggs found that the Utku Inuit emotion terms were essentially an “opening into an

immense and elaborate ethno-psychological belief system that characterised both

human nature and everyday interactions” (Lutz 1988: 5). Briggs’s book ‘Never in

Anger’ (1998) asserts, as the title suggests, that the Utku do not get angry and in fact

are extremely intolerant of it. Furthermore, Briggs (1998) states that this intolerance is

12

a reflection of their intrinsic warm-heartedness and support of each other. In her book,

Briggs describes how her own disruptive emotionality throughout her fieldwork

resulted in her to be cast as “a confirmed irritant” (Briggs 1998: 46). Her increasing

depression meant that she was shunted from the highly interconnected Utku society

who get embarrassed when they are the object of too much concern. From a social

model perspective, Briggs’ observations correspond to Goffmann’s postulations that

the ritual nature of interactions lies in groups (Kemper 2004: 48), successive of

Durkheim’s proposition that the force of cohesion is created through shared emotions

during rituals. This enacted ritual is not focused on religious symbols, as in

Durkheim’s application, but on the self of each interacting participant (Ibid: 48).

Hence, if this ritual fails and someone’s integrity is thereby let down, the result may

well be a commonly felt emotion of embarrassment (Ibid: 48).

Catherine Lutz (1988) contemplates the legacy of applying Western concepts of

emotions cross-culturally. She states that a “large number of implicit cultural

assumptions are embedded in that concept, and they have been used to structure both

our understanding of ourselves and our anthropological descriptions of the people of

other societies” (Lutz 1988: 14). In her ethnography of the Ifaluk, living on a

Micronesian Atoll, Lutz aims to reconstruct emotional concepts in terms of the local

perceptions. She explains that unlike in Western construction, in the Ifaluk culture,

thoughts, feelings and will are traditionally thought to come from the gut, hence why

food is of prime importance to people’s well-being (Lutz 1988: 95). When

experiencing intense grief, for example, the Ifaluk feel like their gut is ripping and are

advised to empty themselves out emotionally in order to alleviate the feeling (Ibid,

95). The cultural perception is that if these feelings are expressed, the pain is reduced

13

and subsequent illnesses avoided (Ibid, 95). Lutz argues that the source, feeling and

resolution of emotions such as grief are culturally variable and thus need to be

conceptualised in accordance with the cultural meaning systems. By using local

emotional concepts, such as fago3, she is able to illustrate how emotions are woven in

complex ways into the cultural meaning system and social relations. In ‘Unnatural

Emotions’ (1988), Lutz is able to point to difference and similarities in the concepts of

emotions, personhood and social relations between the Ifaluk and Western societies,

thereby highlighting how emotions are constructed socially and culturally.

The two essential points Lutz makes in her book are that she contends, on the one

hand, and in opposition to the advocates of the psychic unity doctrine, that emotions

are cultural and therefore constructed by people rather than by nature. Secondly, and

simultaneously, Lutz asserts that emotions have meanings within society and “reflect

some prevailing cultural assumptions about self, society, and epistemology” (1988:

217), causing them to vary cross-culturally.

The proposition that emotions are culturally and socially determined is thus in

contrast to the psychic unity doctrine, which asserts that emotions are biologically

determined and therefore experientially the same. This bio-psychological viewpoint is

inherently derived from Freud’s propositions that humans are driven by intrinsic and

unconscious emotions.

3 According to Lutz (1988), fago is a state that can be compared to the English terms “compassion”, “love” and “sadness”

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1, Western psychology and individualism

Freud’s legacy

Freud asserted that emotions reveal unconscious drives and are thus derived from

within, following on from Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories put forward in the

‘Origin of Species’ (1859) and the ‘Descent of Man’ (1882). Darwin asserted that

humans are essentially animals; passive mechanisms driven by instincts that ought to

increase survival. Darwin asserted that over the course of evolution, behaviour that

proves to be advantageous to survival is retained through natural selection. Instincts

are thus physical drives that ought to have benefits to the individual. This moved

Darwin to consider the topic of emotions and their expressions. Accordingly, certain

manifestations, stimulated by the environment, ought to be adaptive by allowing an

organism to signal their intentions and needs and thus letting them discover their own

viewpoint of the world (Lutz and White 1986: 410). In the ‘Expression of the

Emotions in Man and Animals’ (1872), Darwin asserts that the facial expression of a

specific emotion is universally the same, having studied the physical expression of a

diversity of emotions in humans and animals. He thus concluded that the expression

of emotions must have been adaptive over the course of evolution (Denzin 1984: 3).

Darwin’s scientific observations consequently afforded to humans an intrinsic

existence that changed Western worldviews forever.

In line with the scientific climate of the time, Freud adapted Darwin’s behavioural

instincts theory to explain the nature of the human psyche. He concerned himself with

sexual and aggressive instincts, which he alleged lurkwithin every person, and are

15

associated with certain psychic energy or libido. This energy, he argued, constitutes

the unconscious mind; the id, which in turn invests into another part of the mind; the

conscious mind, which he refers to as the ego (Ewen 1993: 24). This interaction, in

this theory, sees humans as driven by instinctual thoughts and emotions, the conscious

mind merely acting as a censor on these instincts according to subjective perceived

external reality. The id is thus portrayed as the ‘rudimentary’ human nature and the

ego the socialised content (Izard 1977: 16). The psyche, Freud asserts, has innate

physical and psychic needs that constantly compel humans to strive for pleasure

(Bock 1995: 25). With the development of culture and associated socially practices,

the conscious mind has had to find ways of satisfying these needs in ways that are

culturally appropriate. Freud refers to this energy diversion as sublimation (Ibid, 27).

Thus, a man may feel hostile towards his manager but takes it out on his friend.

Should these drives not be compensated for adequately, however, Freud believed

them to become repressed ([1920] 1966: 364). This repression can be explained as

“the (pathogenic) process by which a mental act capable of becoming conscious is

made unconscious and forced back into the unconscious system” (Freud cited in Miles

1966: 112). Freud claimed that consciousness develops during childhood

socialisation. Consequently, all unpleasant experiences and feelings that are

experienced by the ego thereafter become blocked out of awareness. The conscious

mind is thus foremost a defence mechanism against natural impulses (Bock 1995: 26),

protecting human consciousness from painful and socially inappropriate thoughts and

emotions. Repression, Freud believed, works only superficially in resolving

instinctual needs. While unconscious, the repressed feelings and thoughts constantly

attempt to find an adequate outlet (Wegman 1984: 85), which is a response that is

“most efficient in bringing about the disappearance of the affect condition” that is

16

determined biologically and subjectively (Wegman 1984: 85). Freud stressed the need

for individuals to find substitute gratifications for these impulses since repression

strangulates the affect, leading to conflicts between the conscious and the

unconscious. Should such conflicts become great enough, he believed this to trigger

psycho-somatic illnesses: neuroses (Bock 1995: 27), which are manifested in the same

way as physical ailments (Freud [1920] 1966: 356). These usually involve “fears and

headaches, the inability to eat or sleep, morbid fantasies, paralysis or impotence, the

compulsion to repeat a word or gesture” (Bock 1995: 27), and thus can disrupt normal

personality and behaviour patterns considerably. The main problem for Freud,

however, was that these expressions were not adequate in resolving the impulses

because the affect is distorted in its appearance and thus cannot become conscious

(Fenichel 1945: 23). In order to get to the root of the conflict, Freud believed

psychoanalytic therapy to be effective. The inter-subjectivity of patient and analyst in

this therapy, Freud thought, would ultimately bring the original emotion to the

former’s consciousness. Of central importance to this process is the concept of

transference, whereby the patient unconsciously transfers the emotions associated

with his neurotic symptoms to the therapist (Ekins and Freeman 1994: 237). To

achieve this effect, the patient has to describe his or her specific neurotic symptoms in

dialogue and associate these to past experiences (Freud [1920] 1966). When the

patient successfully transfers his or her unconscious emotions to the therapist, the

nature of the original neurosis changes and becomes known as a ‘transference

neurosis’ (Freud [1920] 1966: 553). In this process of transference “a whole series of

psychological experiences are revived not as belonging to the past, but as applying to

the person of the physician at the present moment” (Freud 1917 in Meares and

Gabbard 2005: 130). Freud believed that when the patient re-interprets the neurosis,

17

the consequential ‘reality testing’4 brings to consciousness the connection between the

original neurosis and the transference neurosis (Freud [1920] 1966: 462). The result

of this, Freud suggested, is that the patient is able to make the psychological

adjustment and henceforth resolve the emotion. Obeyesekere (1990) states that in

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory a person ultimately needs to become aware of the

irrational nature of his unconscious in terms of a rational discourse (281) in order to

deal with it.

Similar to neuroses, Freud treats the images in dreams as manifestations of repressed

emotions (Freud [1920] 1966: 101), arguing that during sleep, the barriers the ego has

erected are abated due to the body’s requirement for rest (Bulkeley 1994: 31). Hence,

the unconscious urge to express itself takes advantage. Since the unpleasant nature of

the unconscious would, however, disturb a peaceful sleep, the repressed desires, by

the means of ‘dream work’, become condensed and distorted5 (Freud [1920] 1966).

Consequently, the dream, Freud argues, is a disguised representation of the underlying

unconscious emotions. Freud used the terms ‘manifest content’ and ‘latent content’ to

separate what we see and experience in a dream from what its real meaning is. The

‘manifest content’ is described as the events in a dream as we remember it when we

wake up (Freud [1920] 1966: 147). The ‘latent content’, on the other hand, is the real

underlying meaning of the dream that cannot normally be seen but needs to be

inferred through the ‘manifest content’. A dream as we remember it at waking can

therefore never fully be trusted in its meaning (Flanders 1993: 3). The real

significance of the dream can only be determined when the dreamer takes on the

4 Freud remarks that ‘reality-testing’ is the process by which a person distinguishes between what is simply an imagination of the mind and what is really occurring (Freud [1920] 1966: 462). 5 Freud remarked the process of dream-construction is equal to the way by which neurotic symptoms become manifested (Freud [1920] 1966: 226).

18

‘work of interpretation’, which has at its aim the undoing of the ‘dream work’ (Freud

[1920] 1966: 210). As with neuroses, this is an idiosyncratic process as each

individual draws from their own life experiences to create a disguised representation

of the unconscious emotions. Therefore, each person has to make their own

associations by calling up “substitutive ideas for each element” (Freud [1920] 1966:

139). The elaboration upon the memory of a dream by the means of association and

inference ought to then allow unconscious ‘forgotten’ material from the past to

become uncovered (Ibid). Freud admitted, however, that some dreams embody a

conscious wish explicitly and thus need no interpretation (Faraday 1972: 70).

Ultimately, Freud put forward the assertion that dream visions are not to be taken as

overt messages from within the self but need interpretation by the individual.

Likewise, the manifestation of the unconscious psyche in a neurosis was described as

needing to be inferred before the emotions can become conscious. Accordingly,

dreams as well as the symptoms of neuroses are spaces in which unconscious natural

drives for pleasure are granted an existence (Freud [1920] 1966: 462).

Central to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is thus the nature of the unconscious. It is

archaic and non-lingual, “essentially pictorial, imagistic and non-rational”

(Obeyesekere 1990: 281). It is thought to stem from the most basic condition of

human existence and is what drives behaviour in day-to-day life. The psychic energy

causing our emotions are essentially instincts that seek to express themselves.

Conscious thoughts6 and emotions are thus the production of deeper emotional

intuitions (Wulff 2007: 25) while repression is associated with pathologies such as

somatisation: the manifestation of physical symptoms that cannot be explained by a 6 In the ‘Project for a Scientific Psychology’ ([1895] 1950), Freud declared that conscious thought can only be possible with the help of speech as it makes possible the connection between word-images and mnemic images (Wegman 1984: 87).

19

physical illness. Psychoanalytic therapy thus seeks to translate and understand the

expression of the unconscious in rational discourse. To avoid somatisation, Freud

suggested allowing all emotions to become conscious and then decide which to gratify

and which to sublimate (Bock 1995: 27).

The ‘psychologising process’ in the West

It has been argued (McIntyre 1981; Kleinman 1986; Parson and Wakeley 1991) that

Freud’s theory, which he developed over the turn of the nineteenth century, helped

revolutionise Western thinking and ideals. With the advent of science in the

seventeenth century, and the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, Freud

constructed a theory around a phenomenon that was in line with the climate of the

time.

Freud’s interest for the psychodynamics of the brain led him to gather remarkable

knowledge and evidence of the working of the psyche, which were to provide the

foundations for his psychoanalytic theory. He took great interest in the work of Jean-

Martin Charcot and Josef Breuer, who discovered that traumatic events can lead to

physical impairments, a result not from the event itself but from the psychological

memory of it (Webster 2004). Freud became particularly interested in Breuer’s patient

Anna O., who had been cured of her neurotic symptoms through talking under

hypnosis about a traumatic event (her father’s death) (Ibid). In their jointly published

book ‘Studies on Hysteria’ (1895), Freud and Breuer put forward the theory that

neuroses are excitations in the brain, caused by repressed emotions. The psychic

defence mechanism warding off the expression of these emotions was thought to be

combated in a relaxed environment where the patient could literally ‘talk himself out’

20

(Wegman 1984: 84). The expression of emotions was thus believed to have a cathartic

effect, bringing about an internal change that was to resolve psychic imbalances

(Ibid).

Freud’s subsequent theoretical expansion on the observations he made came to

transform the concept and perceptions of emotions over the coming century (Deigh

2001: 1247): “In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, emotions were commonly

conceived of as discrete, episodic and purely affective states of consciousness, states

whose connection to cognition, physiological activity, and conduct was that of either

cause to effect or the converse.” (Deigh 2001: 1247). By the beginning of the

twentieth century emotions became understood as products of the complexity of the

mind and entirely the result of the individual’s inner influence (Wolff: 2007: 88).

Physical symptoms that could not be accounted for by physical illnesses thus became

identified as psychic illnesses, generating the belief in a mind-body dichotomy

(Kleinman and Kleinman 1985: 434). Somatisation, the traditional idiom of distress,

was consequently viewed as pathological and replaced with psychological complaints

in the form of specifically labelled emotions (Wolff 2007: 21).

Kleinman identified a large-scale ‘psychologising process’ to have taken place, at

least in American culture, since World War I (1986 in Danforth 1989: 269). He argues

that this development had been embedded in a wider cultural change shaped by

modernism: “a deeper interiorization of the self has been culturally constituted as the

now dominant Western ethnopsychology” (Kleinman 1985: 434). Kleinman and

Kleinman draw from Max Weber’s conclusions of the unique rationality of Western

society to explain the cultural traditions that have effected the psychologising of

emotions. Rationalisation being “the process by which explicit, abstract, intellectually

21

calculable rules and procedures are increasingly substituted for sentiment, tradition

and rule of thumb in all spheres of human activity” (Wrong 1976 in Kleinman and

Kleinman 1985: 436). Weber’s (1864-1920) assertion of rationality refers to the value

changes that he argues took place in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries (Kalberg

2002: xi). As economic success was placed at the forefront of people’s lives, attitudes

and conduct became increasingly calculated and controlled, putting more pressure on

individuals and leading to the growing importance of scientific reasoning in everyday

life (Turner 1991: xxiv). Weber saw science as a ‘vocation’ that when placed next to

religion effected a ‘disenchantment of the world’ and the erosion of religious powers

(Turner 1991: xxiv). Freud’s ‘disenchanting’ scientific theory corresponded to the

general ideology of the time and was thus able to gain momentum. Emotions,

previously regarded as somatic in form, now became placed in the minds of people,

making its somatic aspect seem unnecessary and voluntary.

Impact on mourning

The strive for work and material achievement that Weber argues to have brought

about a new value system in the West renounced the powers of religious institutions

over society and placed it into the hands of market forces (Carrette and King

2005:74). Social affairs and activities became of diminishing importance as ambitions

for economic success led to a more self-centred attitude (Kalberg 2001: xi).

Consequently, people took increased responsibility of their own lives (Homans

2000:6). The resultant fragmentation of society led to death, previously understood

22

and experienced as a communal event and mourned in public rituals, to be privatised

and thus dealt with behind closed doors (Homans 2000). Geoffrey Gorer (1965)

argued that this erosion of public mourning rituals in the nineteenth century and the

diminishing powers of religious institutions had left people feeling increasingly

unguided and unsure of how to respond to bereavement. What had previously

provided interpersonal support and emotional links in difficult situations now had to

be resolved individually (Homans 2000: 6). Gorer noted that once the initial funeral

was over, the ritual was finished, too, and the person left to face the period of

mourning without further guidance or support (1965: 32). The ideas of Darwin, who

located emotions within the individual at the end of the nineteenth century and Freud,

who attributed them to the psyche, led to an idea that grief should be treated as a

natural but individual experience, thus further undermining the value of public

mourning rituals (Ibid, 6). Mourning, already removed from the public realm, now

became understood as an idiosyncratic experience that needed to be resolved within

the self. Freud contended in his 1917 paper ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ that

individual psychic work was required to overcome a loss of an object, thus providing

new directions to an alienated society. He situates the entire experience of loss within

the mind. Freud’s concept of Trauer (mourning) did not separate the action and the

response to bereavement but merely contrasted it to a psychological illness he called

Melancholia. This psycho-pathology, he contends, is caused by a denial of the break

of the connection to a loved object in order to avoid the painful emotions that

acceptance would arouse. Freud asserts that this resistance to let go can only work

within the psyche, however, as ‘reality testing’ shows that the object no longer exists

externally (Freud 1917: 244). This, accordingly, leads to ambivalent feelings because

the maintained connection to the object within the mind cannot compare to the

23

original (Ibid, 245). Freud states that the loss cannot be worked through and thus

leads to melancholia; a state characterised by “distressing self-denigration” (Ibid,

247). To prevent this, he stresses the importance of accepting the reality of the loss,

however painful. He does, however, assert that naturally, nobody willingly lets go of

an attachment but that ‘reality testing’ usually provides conscious realisation that the

object is lost, effecting mourning. Thus the ‘work of mourning’, whereby all

attachments to the lost object are severed is said to be crucial in overcoming

bereavement (Ibid, 244) Freud asserts that “when the work of mourning is completed

the ego becomes free and uninhibited again” (Freud 1917: 245).

Such mental ‘working through’, in the view of Freud, ought to resolve grief and result

in a return to normal life activities by the individual. Freud’s concept of mourning

therefore situated grief outside society and inside the individual meaning that public

mourning rituals became unnecessary. By proposing that psychic attachments to the

dead need to be severed, Walter (1999) has argued, that Freud successfully abolished

the dead by the twentieth century (24), and replaced the value of continuing bonds to

the deceased with psychic mourning, which has became the dominant idea in Western

society (Klass, Silverman and Nickman 1996). Hence, as much as the communal

support diminished so did that of the deceased. The individual’s increased

responsibility of his own emotions provided autonomy and individuation so highly

valued in the modern West (Ibid, 14). The grief experience is therefore viewed not as

a social or moral experience but a mental health problem that can be solved (Katz

2001: 1).

In consequence, modernistic grief theory effectively pathologised a prolonged

emotionality and the reluctance to severe ties with the loved other (Walter 1999:

24

113), and has been recommended (Horowitz et al. 2003) to be included as a separate

category within the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ (DSM).

Meanwhile, melancholia is generally referred to as clinical depression, consisting of

somatic, behavioural, cognitive and affective symptoms (Kleinman and Good 1985:

9). Its pathological nature is motivating thousands to take medication, undergo grief

therapy or manage their grief through self-help guides found in local bookstores.

Somatisation is undesirable and ought to be avoided in contemporary rationalised

society.

Gorer (1965) argues that the rationalisation and internalisation of feelings has effected

the open expression of grief to become viewed as an irrational response, which ought

to be kept under control. Taking up the theme of ‘hidden mourning’ Darian Leader

(2008) has recently argued that in the contemporary West, death has become a taboo

subject and that the majority of people do not outwardly show their experience of a

bereavement, neither by following a specific dress code nor by emotions, but prefer to

work through it themselves in a subjectively appropriate manner (2008: 73). He

highlights the stoicism of Jackie Kennedy at her husband’s funeral to depict the

typical rationality often displayed in public. Krupp and Kligfeld (1962) have argued

that American culture has aimed “to remove death from our minds and even our

feelings” (226). In agreement with this view, the French historian Philippe Ariès

avowed that death had become a hidden phenomenon in the West (Homans 2000: 10).

Bereavement, depicted by Freud as a most painful and despairing experience that

needs to be resolved, has become the ‘problem’ of the individual to resolve. Whereas

repression is considered as extremely unhealthy, even aligned with other causes of

25

cancer, the expression of emotions is greatly ‘policed’ and pathologised (Walter

1999).

Conclusion

Rationalisation, the ‘disenchantment of the world’ and the subsequent ‘psychologising

process’ have been the forces behind an increased internalisation and individualisation

of grief and mourning in Western society. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory depicts

emotions as expressions of unconscious instincts that can be resolved. Somatisations

have been explained by repression and have thus been pathologised. Equally,

melancholia has been termed depression and has been identified by intense and/or

prolonged grief.

By situating emotions within the individual, responsibility for the expression of

emotions has to be taken on by the self. Inappropriate reactions to bereavement have

been deemed abnormal or pathological.

I will now turn to two examples.

To assess how important the aspect of individuality and self-control is in middle-class

American belief, Jane Wellenkamp and Douglas Hollan (1981) carried out a set of

interviews with undergraduate students on their beliefs regarding death and

bereavement. Hollan (1992) states: “we were struck by the extent to which students

relied upon the notion of self-sufficiency, autonomy, and independence to cope with

the experience of grief and loss” (289). Each of the respondents believed that it was

important to show strength in the wake of a death. Hollan (1992) adds that for the

interviewed, strength meant that one had to control the public display of emotions “as

well as actively master or resolve one’s private sense of grief so that a normal lifestyle

26

could be resumed as quickly as possible” (289). He further asserts that the results of

the interviews strongly correlate with the larger cultural notion of the ‘strong’ and

independent self (Hollan 1992: 291). Despite this, bereavement was regarded as a

very painful experience and thereby becomes a challenge to the integrity and

independence of the self. Thus, Hollan succinctly states that “feelings of loss and

emptiness during periods of bereavement betray aspects of the American experiential

self which are only poorly accounted for, if not actually denied, by the ideal cultural

model” (1992: 290).

2. Do Western ideas about grief and mourning, specifically detailed

by Freud, manifest themselves in other cultures?

The discussion so far has focused around the idea that, in a Western context, grief is

experienced and articulated in psychological terms, effected by Freud’s concept of

psychodynamics. Grief is therefore conceptualised as a subjective reaction to a loss.

It is a feature of an individual rather than of situations, relationships or moral

positions (Wulff 2007: 21).

27

It has been argued (Rosenblatt et al. 1976) that the experience of grief in other

cultures, not influenced by modern psychology, is also mentally conditioned and

therefore essentially the same. In this view, diverse cultural beliefs and practices

function to alleviate an individual’s grief. However, it has been pointed out (Marsella

and White 1982; Lutz 1988) that these concepts of emotions cannot be extended

cross-culturally because social reality and perceptions of personhood ultimately differ.

This discussion will first consider the argument that Western ideas about grief and

mourning, specifically detailed by Freud, do not manifest themselves in other cultures

and imposing such ideas upon these cultures is unhelpful. The discussion will then

contest this view and draw upon Obeyesekere’s idea of how psychoanalytic theories

can be customised to understand the complexities of grief and mourning.

Western ideas about grief and mourning do not manifest themselves in other

cultures

The Yucatec Maya women

It can be argued that Anne Woodrick’s study (1995) of Maya women living in Santa

Cruceros, Northern Yucátan (Mexico) provides an apt example of a culture whose

ideas about grief and mourning are fundamentally opposed to Western ideas.

28

Woodrick argues that ‘grief’ is not caused by an individual’s reaction as presumed in

the West, but as the result of actions by others, thus affecting the whole experience of

grief and mourning. In the perception of the Maya women, people have two

contradictory facets about themselves, which prompt their behaviour. On the one

hand humans are said to be good and thus loving towards others; the effect of the

intrinsic soul, and on the other hand, there is the notion of an evil spirit that inflicts

suffering on others (Woodrick 1995: 407). Woodrick asserts that relationships

between people are therefore always full of mistrust (Ibid, 407). Any sign that

another person is anything but good leads to the assertion that they cannot be relied

upon (Ibid, 407). Maya women are therefore said to be in constant fear of

abandonment due to this notion of an evil spirit within people (Ibid, 405).

Abandonment is thought to cause illnesses the Maya refer to as ‘sentiment’ and

‘nerves’ (Ibid, 405). The former is the grieving of the soul because of an unrequited

love (Ibid, 405), while ‘nerves’ is the result of ‘molestation’ of the blood, which in

turn irritates the brain and effects uncontrollable aggressive behaviour (Ibid, 407).

When a person dies Maya women view this as abandonment and react accordingly.

Crying and lethargy are understood as the symptoms of ‘sentiment’ caused by the

grieving soul but inflicted by the abandoner’s evil. Woodrick (1995) states that

women always define themselves by their soul, which is good and loving, and may

only be sad when it has been betrayed in its love. Like ‘sentiment’, ‘nerves’ is also

believed to be generated from outside because of the perception of the good self (Ibid,

408). Consequently women experiencing ‘nerves’, see themselves as passive actors,

incapable of independent aggressive behaviour (Woodrick 1995).

29

In light of this, the belief that grief and anger are generated from outside of the self is

considerably different to the Western perception of an ‘inner life’. Grief in the

Western model is thought to be generated in the minds of people, while the resultant

action is the expression of the emotion. Therefore, the “connection between an

emotion and behaviour is not always direct, but may be mediated by “desires” and

“intentions”: emotions produce desires that lead to intentions that lead to actions”

(Wellenkamp 1988: 487). Individuals are made responsible for their behaviour due to

the notion of consciousness. For the Maya women, on the other hand, the whole

experience of ‘sentiment’ and ‘nerves’ is the result of the evilness of another person,

inflicted on the ‘good’ self. While the soul may be sad, it is believed to never be

angry or spiteful nor cause suffering. As the soul is ultimately what women define

themselves by, behaviour that is anything but good can never be the production of an

individual’s self. As these ‘illnesses’ are furthermore believed to be uncontrollable

somatic affects, expression and affect are in direct connection.

Illness thus takes on a different meaning. For the Maya women, grief and anger is an

illness because its symptoms are the result of somebody else’s evil spirit and thus not

part of the self. The strict cultural separation between good and evil causes them to

see behaviour that deviates from their definition of the self not only as an illness but

also as generated from without.

In the West, however, such abnormalities are the response of an individual to grief

and in direct contrast to ‘healthy’ grieving. Grief, though a natural response to

bereavement, is limited to specific emotions and intensity in order to pass as ‘normal’

(Lofland 1985: 172). Reactions that deviate from social expectations, such as anger,

are classed as abnormal precisely because it is thought to be generated by the self and

30

ought not to be. Due to these constraints, it is possible to see somatisation (the

manifestation of physical symptoms that cannot be explained by a physical illness) as

an expression of affects that have been repressed. Its meaning lies in the belief that if

certain emotions cannot be acted out directly that they will transform into physical

complaints. In the Yucatán setting, however, somatisation is the ‘natural’ and direct

response to bereavement, despite its interpretation as an illness.

Similarly, somatisation in the Yucatán setting is interpreted as distress by Western

observers, but not by the Maya. The Maya believe distress is the direct response of

the body to the evil spirit’s effect, while in the West, distress is believed to be caused

by the psychic inability to make an emotion conscious.

Grief reaction cannot, therefore, be viewed in isolation of the cultural belief system

but have to be understood in terms of it. Phenomenologically applying one’s own

ideology about illnesses ignores the diversity in the perceptions of an emotion and

thus yields little understanding of the local experience. Lutz (1985) argues that it is

impossible to extent Western psychological perceptions cross-culturally when the

local perception of mind and body are considerably different to a Western

understanding. Instead she refers to an emotion as a “culturally constructed and

socially negotiated judgement about a situation” (Lutz 1985: 92). She treats the

cultural setting as the sine qua non for understanding how people perceive and

experience themselves. The Mayan women’s viewpoint on abandonment and

personhood thus affects their perception of bereavement and their experience of the

resultant illnesses. Comparing these to Western illness categories where somatisation

of anger and grief are the main affects involved in the psychodynamics of depression

(Schieffelin 1985: 107), surrenders little understanding of the local experience.

31

The Kaluli

Edward Schieffelin’s study of the Kauli people of Papua New Guinea during the

1960s and 1970s provides another example of how ideas of grief and mourning differ

from Western notions. Lofland argues that what is classed as pathological in one

culture, for example the encouragement of emotional displays after bereavement, may

not be considered pathological in another (1985: 171). Freud concentrated on the

unconscious emotional work that shapes our conscious thoughts and feelings, which

resulted in ‘irrational’ emotions to be viewed as pathological, thus providing the

modern Western categories of ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ grief. In the West, public

displays of grief, especially anger, are not generally encouraged or seen as

appropriate. These ‘unacceptable’ displays of emotion are thus believed, to be

sublimated or repressed by the individual (Ramazani 1994 in Clewell 2002: 54).

Such Western ideas do not manifest themselves in all cultural contexts, especially

within the world of the Kaluli. The Kaluli people are said to publicly flaunt their grief

and anger due to the notion of reciprocity and thus exclusively direct their grief

outwardly. According to Schieffelin, the notion of ‘pathological’ grief does not exist

and a depression-like state following bereavement is very uncommon (1985: 116).

He argues that depression in Western culture is actually a plea for support, which

among the Kaluli is conveyed through their display of emotion and public

involvement in feelings (Schieffelin 1985: 115).

32

The egalitarian Kaluli society is said to place much emphasis on social ties and

interpersonal support. Their expression of feeling is in part aimed at influencing

others either by intimidation or by evoking support and compassion (Schieffelin 1985:

109). They are believed to exaggerate their emotions rather than to hide them in order

to arouse in others the desired effect (Ibid, 109). The display of anger is thought to be

employed to make a social assertion, while grieving, displayed in “loud wails and

sobbing speech” which is used to evoke sympathy (Ibid, 109). Thus the individual,

by making public his feelings, provokes in others the reaction he desires.

When Schieffelin conducted his fieldwork, the Kaluli were said to number around

1,200 people, organised in twenty longhouses, each maintaining close social ties with

each other (Schieffelin 1985: 107). Accordingly, these ties were maintained through a

system of constant and balanced reciprocity so if one person gives a gift to another, he

is expected to make an exactly equivalent return gift known as wel or a compensatory

gift known as su (Ibid, 111). This cultural idea of reciprocity, Schieffelin states,

provides to the Kaluli a model for dealing with most situations in daily life (Ibid,

111). Thus when somebody has suffered a loss, the Kaluli perceive their situation as

one in which that person is entitled to redress: “The angry claim redress through

demand for compensation or a move toward vengeance, while the grief stricken wait

upon the compassion of others to provide it (or transmute their grief into anger)”

(Ibid, 112). Through ceremonies these feelings are regularly acted out as songs and

dances are performed to remind the spectators of the loss, which evokes communal

anguish, which then turns into anger to reciprocate the anguish they have been made

to feel (Ibid, 113).

33

Grief is thus has a meaning amongst the Kaluli, as does anger, because it makes a

statement that is conceptualised as a plea for support. Anger and grief are therefore

feelings that are formed through this interaction with other people due to the system

of reciprocity. The society is therefore as much involved in their grief because they

are expected to reciprocate the anguish they have been made to feel. Emotional links

and inter-personal support are exploited extensively in the Kaluli culture to negotiate

the loss and the feelings involved. Therefore, the expression of grief, in light of the

local concept of reciprocity, can be argued to be motivated by the emphasis that is

placed on expression rather than be associated with the Freudian concept of

psychological needs.

Western ideas about grief and mourning do manifest themselves in other cultures

The ‘work of culture’

Although the acceptance of psychoanalytic concepts in the West have been argued to

have been the consequence of cultural changes that were able to accommodate such a

34

new outlook, the concept itself has been effectively altered by cultural psychologists

to include the affects of cultural processes.

For instance, it is has been suggested (Keyes 1985) that the concept of depression is in

fact a creation of Western culture, effected by the increased hopelessness at

bereavement in modern society (169). Charles Keyes (1985) states that the inability,

in the contemporary West, to make sense of one’s suffering has led people to

construct their suffering in illness idioms, in accordance with the medicalisation of

Western society, and through that process been led to resort to medication or

psychotherapy for relief (169). The development of an illness idiom is thus viewed as

functional by motivating people to do something about their suffering. Keyes

formulates this idea by drawing from Obeyesekere’s notion of the ‘work of culture’.

Obeyesekere defines this as “the process whereby symbolic forms existing on the

cultural level get created and recreated through the minds of people.” (Obeyesekere

1990: xix).

Unintelligible private distress is believed to be articulated across cultures in line with

the local ideology and thereby made sense of and mastered (Keyes 1985: 159). The

Freudian principles of unconscious motivation and sublimation are applied cross-

culturally and ought to explain why people in different cultures react to their feelings

differently. To explain why humans perceive their situation and emotions differently,

Obeyesekere uses Max Weber’s notion of verstehen, which portrays “culture as the

imposition of meaning on phenomenal nature and human experience, based on a

species-conditioned drive towards meaning” (Obeyesekere 1990: 18).

To Obeyesekere, culture is a symbolic order that humans appropriate for their

“inchoate inner feelings” (the work of culture) (Keyes 1985: 159). By substituting

these feelings for a cultural symbol they are thus made intelligible and meaningful to

35

the individual (Ibid, 159). These symbols are thus both personal and cultural

(Obeyesekere 1990: 280).

Obeyesekere gives the example of Sri Lankan Buddhists, who allegedly use the

shared religious idiom to articulate their private depressive affect and thereby make

sense of their suffering. He states that while objectively their emotional state can be

compared with Western depression as conceptualised by the DSM, their Buddhist

belief, which considers real human life to be suffering and sorrow, causes them to

cultivate this condition (Obeyesekere 1985: 134). Although this emotion-like state is

thought to be triggered in both cultures by a death, instead of pathologising it,

Buddhist use the meditation on revulsion to confirm and generalise this hopelessness,

to achieve the final goal of cessation from suffering (nirvāna) (Obeyesekere 1985).

Thus, Obeyesekere seeks not to translate emotions or mental illnesses from one

culture to the other but rather to deconstruct them to the ‘origin’ of psychoanalytic

theory and reconstruct them in terms of local cultural meaning and symbol systems,

while not denying their ultimate influence on the psychic reality. He thereby aims to

reject ethnocentrism.

However, psychoanalysis is a Western construct and by applying such a theory,

cultural processes are personalised rather than seen as creators of people’s perceptions

and experiences. It would therefore be just as reasonable to assume, following ethno-

psychologists such as White and Marsella (1982) that “even our most basic

conceptualizations are cultural constructions which are embedded in implicit theories

of personhood and social reality” (18). Simply put, from this perspective, emotions

and thoughts are constructs of culture rather than the cause of culture.

36

The Sora

The experience of grief, how ever it may be perceived or expressed, is, despite the

contention of ‘cultural construction’, by no means unique to Western culture. Death

is undeniably a universal event that brings with it a separation that needs to be

adjusted to. It has been observed (Rosenblatt et al. 1976; Keyes 1985) that there is in

fact a core grieving method that is employed across cultures.

I have shown earlier that in the West mourning is considered as an internal process,

whereby one has to acknowledge the loss and sever the mental attachments to the

deceased to prevent sinking into depression.

How can we then interpret the observation by Keyes (1985: 168) that in cultures,

which are isolated from Western psychology, grief following bereavement rarely

leads to what has been defined in the West as depression? By applying the ‘work of

culture’ to Freud’s ‘work of mourning’, Keyes (1985) asserts that this is because

“funerary and memorial rites literally “make meaning” of the loss” (159). By drawing

on religious ideas about an afterlife, these rites, he contends, provide to the living an

image of the deceased as one transformed into an immortal, and thus accord to the

living “social identities that no longer depend on relationships with the deceased”

(Keyes 1985: 168).

This assertion is, however, limiting when considering that in the Sora society living in

eastern India, the dead are a part of their identity. As I will demonstrate, it is only

through this shared identity that their ‘grief’ can be resolved; while at the same time

depression7 is evaded.

7 In the psychoanalytic theory depression is caused by a mental restoration of the lost object.

37

Piers Vitebsky who spent a total of eighteen months living among the Sora in 1976,

1977 and 1979, states that the Sora define themselves by their soul (puradun), which

is situated in the liver, and perceived as the very centre of a person (Vitebsky 1993:

52). This consciousness however is never assigned individuality or considered as

stable. It is influenced already in its formation in the mother’s womb by its ancestors

and transforms constantly through social interactions (Ibid, 51). At death this

consciousness does not simply die but transforms into a sonum, which designates both

an entity and a state (Ibid, 5). Just as the living’s consciousness is constituted by that

of the deceased and other living kin, the consciousness of the dead is constituted by

that of the ancestors and the living. Through this shared consciousness the dead and

the living constantly interact and thereby transform each other.

Death is thus not a negation of life but rather seen as a separation, as they are “pulled

apart into separate realms of existence” (Vitebsky 1993: 9). The sonum primarily

resides in the ‘Underworld’ as an ‘Ancestor-sonum’, which is perceived of as

nurturing as it puts soul-force into the growing crop (Ibid, 10). However, a sonum at

the same time can reside in a feature within the landscape, what Vitebsky refers to as

an ‘Experience-sonum’, which attacks the living and thereby tries to “‘eat’ the

victim’s soul” (Ibid, 10). It is thus the ‘experience’ aspect of the sonum, which is

feared by the living as it constantly inflicts illness in an attempt to pull them to the

‘Underworld’. The ultimate aim of the kin of the dead is thus to eliminate this hostile

aspect of the otherwise nurturing sonum and thereby transform their own

consciousness.

38

This transformation, however, cannot be done at once but essentially depends on the

evolvement of the feelings, which the sonum and the mourner have for each other

(Vitesbsky 1993: 199). This negotiation of feeling is effected by several funeral rites,

but primarily through dialogues they hold with the dead. To this end a shaman,

usually a woman, is used as an intermediary between the two realms of existences

(Ibid, 49). Thus, signs of an ‘Experience’, which Vitebsky translates as a ‘Memory’8,

lead to an interrogation whereby the shaman, in trance, is said to climb down to the

‘Underworld’, leaving her body for the dead to use as the means for communication

with the living (Vitebsky 1993). Through these dialogues, Vitebsky says, the living

aim to gain an insight into the consciousness of the dead and thereby make sense of

their own feelings (Vitebsky 1993: 92). During dialogues, the dead, speaking through

the shaman’s mouth, make demands of a sacrifice to the living, which the Sora see as

a compensation for their own soul, thus ridding themselves of the ‘Memory’

(Vitebsky 1993).

However, it is essentially through these dialogues the Sora are able to acquire an

understanding of the sonum’s attempt to ‘eat the living’ and mediate the hostility of

the dead as it is the state of mind of the sonum that ultimately affects that of the living

(Vitebsky 1993: 7).

For example, Vitebsky (1993: 171) recites a translated inquest of a little girl

(Amboni), which died with “open scars on her throat” by her mother (Sindi), to depict

how such a discussion is structured:

8 Vitebsky intentionally writes ‘Memory’ with a capital ‘M’ to make clear that he not referring to the mental function ‘memory’ but rather ‘a recollection’ (1993: 200).

39

Sindi: “Oh my love, my darling, don’t cause your own illness in others. Can you say

that your mother and father didn’t sacrifice for you? They didn’t turn their backs or

refuse to help you, did they? Think of all those pigs, all those chickens, goats,

buffalos, my lovely child.”

Amboni: “Mother, you were horrid to me, you scolded me, you called me Scar-Girl,

you said, ‘You’re a big girl now, why should I feed you when you sit around doing

nothing?’

This shows that the Sora aim to discourage the dead from causing illness but at the

same time brings to discussion much broader issues that have presumably been left

unaddressed during their lifetime together. It is thus through these maintained

relationships, which are yet distant, that the ‘Memory’ and other implicit thoughts

become explicit.

It is intriguing how these dialogues seem to resemble Western psychoanalytic therapy.

While the inter-subjectivity between patient and analyst in psychoanalysis ultimately

seeks to bring to consciousness the inner emotional conflicts by transferring them

onto the analyst, the Sora share their consciousness with the dead. Thus, during

dialogue and sacrifices they seek to directly manipulate the consciousness of the dead,

in order to transform their own. By this process, the ‘Memory’ aspect of the dead is

said to slowly fade. However, it is only when there is no longer a living kin to

remember the dead that the ‘Memory’ aspect becomes extinct (Vitebsky 1993: 233).

Consequently, throughout their whole life, the Sora depend on their relationships to

the deceased as they are the means by which feelings and illnesses can be alleviated

40

and nourishment through their soul-force provided. It is true that Sora identities are

changed through the custom of dialogues, but ultimately the dead remain part of it.

How can the assumption by Keyes that “social identities…no longer depend on

relationships with the deceased” (1985: 168) and the Sora findings then be

accommodated?

I suggest that how ‘grief’ is ‘worked through’ ultimately depends on how ‘grief’ is

conceptualised in the local setting, making Keyes’s observations that there is a core

grieving process unimportant. Evidently, the Sora belief in sonums and their concept

of personhood influences the way their feelings are apprehended and addressed. They

are able to resolve their ‘grief’ because they share it with the sonum that is ultimately

the cause. By ‘working it out’ with the sonum, one also ‘works through’ one’s ‘grief’.

In the case of the Sora, attachment is therefore vital for achieving resolution, which is

in opposition to psychoanalytic theory of successful mourning, where attachments to

the dead ought to ultimately be left behind. Thus, Keyes’s attempt to bridge the gap

between the ‘work of culture’ and the ‘work of mourning’ has to be viewed as less

successful than Obeyesekere’s contention that through the ‘work of culture’ “feelings

of loss become articulated as publicly sanctioned meanings and symbols, and in that

movement from private world through social ideology to public symbol the feeling is

mastered” (1985: 16).

Conclusion

Obeyesekere’s application of psychoanalytic theory in the study of grief successfully

explains, in Western terms, why individuals within a particular culture perceive their

grief differently and how, through unconscious appropriation of the local symbols and

41

meanings, they are able to make their grief intelligible. However, it neglects the fact

that unlike in Western society, in the cultures I have discussed, people do not perceive

themselves as autonomous or bounded individuals. Hence applying a theory that

ultimately makes an individual the central actor in his world undermines the central

difference between Western culture and non-Western cultures.

3. A stronger sense of self in modern Western society has

dramatically shaped our conceptualisation and experience of grief

and mourning.

42

It has been noted frequently that Western culture has developed a sense of

individuality to an extent exceptional among the societies of the world (Lofland 1985:

178). According to Colin Morris (1972), “in primitive societies, the training of the

child is usually directed to his learning the traditions of the tribe so that he may find

his identity, not in anything peculiar to himself, but in the common mind of the

people” (in Lofland 1985: 179).

For Louis Dumont, the keystone of modern, Western ideology is individualism which,

he argued, is directly opposed to a holistic9 understanding. This fundamental

structural difference between the West and non-Western societies can provide an

alternative approach to Obeyesekere’s psychoanalysis.

As shown in the earlier discussion, individualism has been a gradual process by which

self interest and privatisation have resulted in a loosening of social ties and effected

an increased internalisation of the self. Furthermore, the advancement of science in

general and Freud’s psychoanalysis in particular, has shaped the Western experience

of grief and mourning and cast it in an individual light, replacing religious, social or

moral connotations and beliefs. Vitebsky (2003) has noted that “the expanded psyche

fills the space left by the retreat of religion” (289). I argue that it is this change in the

location of the ‘self’ in Western culture, above all the changes that have taken place in

Western society over time, that have shaped our conceptualisation and experience of

grief. In contrast to this, many non-Western societies believe that the grief experience

9 A person in a holistic culture perceives the self in relation to others so that one self is able to be altered by the relations that exist between one self and others. This means that a person in a holistic culture cannot be understood by looking only at the individual but must be considered in relation to the whole (cosmology). Thus Holism is “the theory that the parts of any whole cannot exist and cannot be understood except in their relation to the whole” (Dumont 1970: 65). Grief and mourning in a holistic culture can therefore only be understood by looking at the cultural values, by which the society lives, acts and emotions are expressed.

43

is not that of the individual but influenced, transformed and shared with society (the

living and the dead) through the permeability that is one’s self.

While Western emotionality has turned ever deeper into the self, I have shown that

grief and mourning in non-Western societies is a social affair implicitly or explicitly.

It has been argued that views of the person in many non-Western societies depend on

relationships within the society (Schweder and Bourne 1984 in Hollan 1992: 284).

Thus a person does not conceptualise the self in the same way as in Western society

and thus looks outside of the self when experiencing grief. This is highlighted by

Clifford Geertz (1984):

“The Western conception of the person as a bounded, unique, more or less integrated

motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic centre of awareness, emotion,

judgement, and action organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively both

against other such wholes and against a social and natural background is, however

incorrigible it may seem to us, a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world’s

cultures” (126 in Hollan 1992: 284).

In Western thought, consciousness is not what constitutes our very being, but

essentially only a small part of a much deeper self that is the unconscious. When

experiencing grief one makes sense of his emotions by looking much deeper inside of

the self. This can commonly be observed in dreams, which are regarded as the most

insightful experience of one’s unconscious emotions.

44

Freud’s theory of dreams not only disenchanted the experience but also led to an ever

deeper interrogation of the self. As outlined by Freud, dreams have a ‘manifest’ and a

‘latent’ content, which meant that what is seen in the dream, is only a representation

of our unconscious emotions. Hence, the ‘manifest’ content is only relevant in that it

stands for emotions within our deeper self. Dreams of the dead are thus interpreted in

a way that made our waking life experiences meaningful.

Dennis Ryan’s recent book ‘Dreams of the Dead’ presents an interesting study of how

people in a Western context interrogate themselves through their dreams. Ryan’s

interviews with 1064 subjects, who had dreams about their dead relatives revealed

that they were almost exclusively regarded as spaces where repressed emotions

became revealed (2006). Ryan identified a number of key elements that were

experienced in these dreams and suggests that these essentially revealed a stage in the

mourning process. Some of the key elements that were picked up on in these dreams

were the increased awareness of the loss, the realisation that they had to let go and a

raised consciousness of emotions avoided in waking life such as guilt and anger.

(Ryan 2006). Of the 279 individuals who dreamt of their dead father, Ryan states:

“68 said that their dreams made them realize, to a greater extent than before, that their

fathers were really dead…90 said the dream put them in touch with the sadness they

still had inside….121 subjects said the dream made them realize how much they miss

their fathers” (Ryan 2006: 52).

Ryan’s study depicts the typical way, in which grief is experienced in Western

society. Dreams bring to consciousness the most painful emotions and knowledge

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that have been avoided in waking life. They are essentially the manifestation of the

unconscious mind, which is our deeper and real self. From my own experience, I

suggest that although most Westerners are not aware of the influence Freud has had

on them, they have learned that a person is regarded as a bounded entity with

emotions as part of one’s self, which is ultimately the space where they have to be

resolved. I also suggest that people do not consider outward expression as necessary

to come to terms with their grief. When my father died I did not show many signs in

public or in private of that indeed I was deeply upset. I can only speculate that this

was because I did not know who else to designate my emotions at but my own deeper

self. In the dreams that I had soon after his death I did what most Westerners do and

assigned them to my unconscious where the bulk of my emotions lay. They thus put

me in touch, so I believed, with the emotions that I could not experience in waking

life. These were my own emotions, not those of anyone else but myself.

In non-Western societies, the idea of an ‘inner life’ does not exist (Clifford 1982 in

Hollan 1992: 289) as we have seen in the case of the Sora in particular. Hence, I

argue that it is this essential difference that needs to be considered when one is to

understand the nature of grief and mourning in a non-Western context.

Conclusion

46

This dissertation has shown that grief, in the selection of case studies, is part of

society, relationships and cultural values as much as it is part of the experiential self.

The sense in which one conceptualises oneself is never in isolation from the

relationships one has with the surrounding community. The way one conceptualises

oneself affects the way one conceptualises and experiences grief.

I have suggested that the Western emotional experience of grief, as outlined by Freud,

can only be superficially linked to the experience that one has in non-Western

societies where Western psychology has not had an impact.

Firstly, the development of a science of the psyche by Freud in the twentieth century

was considered. The dissertation then continued with a description of how Freud’s

theory in the twentieth century corresponded considerably with the modernisation

process during which people took increased interest in themselves and society became

directed at the will of the person rather than society as a whole. The autonomy people

gained through this process involved an increasing responsibility of their emotions

and actions, which rationalisation happened to regulate. As a number of scholars

(Walter 1999, Leader 2008) have noted, emotions became ‘policed’. Freud’s theory

of an unconscious mind, which directs our every emotion and action, and a conscious

mind, that regulates these, therefore not only abstracted the self from society but

effected an even deeper preoccupation with the self. Hence grief became understood

as the emotions of an even deeper self. Daniel Wickberg (1998) has stated that “the

historical process of internalization represents a transformation in the relationship

between person and social order” (15). Thus in relation to grief and mourning,

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory contended that the experience is solely one’s own and

is resolved within the conscious mind. He asserted that mourning is the natural

reaction to a perceived loss and resolved within the self rather than with or in society.

47

This influenced peoples’ belief that grief was indeed psychological and should not

become a physical experience. When, however, grief could not be resolved and

became prolonged, it was believed to cause illnesses such as depression.

I have shown, within this discussion, that the self is not only conceptualised

differently in a non-Western context, but the influence other people can have on one’s

experiential self is substantial.

Woodrick’s example of the Maya women (1995), highlights that oneself is not able to

cause emotions associated with bereavement since oneself is always good and grief

and anger are conceptualised as illnesses that are essentially bad and cause suffering.

Hence it is the other person and his or her evil spirit that was able to inflict these

illnesses. The self thereby becomes permeable and grief is treated as an illness that is

experienced by oneself but ultimately not the source of it.

Hence in comparison to a non-Western context, where Freud has not had an impact, I

have shown that the experience of grief is considerably different because the self is

essentially good and grief and anger is conceptualised as opposed to that.

I then turned to the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea who seek compensation for their loss

by the community in order to resolve their grief. Thereby the resolution of grief lies

not in the self but in the relationship one has with the other members of the

community. Thus I argue that emotions are formed through this social interaction

with other people, which is simultaneously linked to the cultural system of

reciprocity, and supported by the writings of Durkheim and Goffman.

Obeyesekere’s idea of the ‘work of culture’ suggests that the Kaluli individual

appropriates the cultural meaning system of reciprocity to articulate and thus resolve

48

their grief. As we have seen however, particularly in the performed rituals that it is

only through this interaction that the emotion takes the form it does.

We saw in the case of the Sora that only through their concept of sonums were they

able to give meaning to their grief. Vitebsky (1993) for example states that the Sora

only very rarely perceive themselves to be ‘really’ ill (183). Thus he makes clear that

it is only through these encounters with the dead that they are able to become ‘ill’.

The self is thus conceptualised through the relationships one has with other Sora,

including the dead. To apply Obeyesekere’s ‘work of culture’ theory, would

essentially ignore this vital composition of personhood that forms through a holistic

social structure and includes not only the living but most importantly the dead. Thus

as much as one is able to interact with other Sora and change the self, one is also able

to interact with sonums and change one’s consciousness. To reduce the person to an

individual and reduce mourning to an individual’s motivation fails to understand this

vital belief and concept of personhood, which is intrinsically linked to a social

structure that focuses not on the individual but communal relationships.

Thus, as much as the Western emotions and reactions were formed by Freud’s

psychoanalytic theory and cultural processes that disconnected the self from society,

so are other culture’s grief and mourning experiences. To reduce cultural

transformations to an individual’s motivation essentially neglects the force culture has

on the individual in a society. In the West culture change was, according to Weber,

the result of a striving for economic success, which had vital repercussions on the

social structure. It is therefore only in the West that people believe their grief to be

one’s own. Western psychology, that has been termed a science through the

rationality that it represents, is culturally restricted essentially through the difference

in social structures. I therefore believe that Dumont’s differentiation between holistic

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and individualistic societies is far more appropriate to make a comparison within this

context than Obeyesekere’s psychoanalytic structure. In a very simple sense it is new

cultures and cultures per se that spring from social relations. Western culture may be

reducible to individuality but not in societies where such autonomy of the self does

not exist.

Thus in a cross-cultural comparison of grief and mourning the study should not so

much place emphasis on the individual but on social organisation and relations that

essentially constitute a totally different cosmology.

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