Death and Dying, Sociology of

Social processes that influence contemporary dying and grieving include secularization, medicalization, professionalization, and sequestration. Sociological research on awareness and trajectories of dying has influenced health care systems toward more open communication styles at the end of life, intended in part to delay the onset of social death to as near as possible to physical death. The recent shift from funerals displaying social status to displaying the deceased's individuality may be understood in terms of postmaterialism. Sociological studies of bereavement are relatively underdeveloped, though the concept of disenfranchised grief has been influential. Recent research links the politics of memorialization to sociological theorizing of collective memory, and examines how the Internet socially relocates the dying, the grieving, and the dead.