City Research Online

Abstract

In this article, I examine the complications to funerary rituals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, I consider the breakdowns of normal systems of community food provisions to bereaved families, while reflecting on both the creativity of populations to create new ritual activities and the lingering effects of being unable to complete expected rituals. Beginning with the death of my father in the early days of the pandemic, I go on to trace the ways in which food provisioning to the bereaved changed alongside developments in understandings of the virus. These changes are contrasted with my previous experiences of food as abundant in funerary situations, in order to draw out the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic caused a major disruption in how care for bereaved persons is expressed.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2021 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Healthcare Services Research & Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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