Thin Spaces: Examining the Ritual of Death Through the Lens of Hospice Care

Abstract

Through the lens of a particular hospice in southeastern Pennsylvania, I aim to observe how death is approached within a culture that swings between ignoring and glorifying death. Through on-site ethnographic engagement with patients of the hospice unit, informal and formal interviews with hospice staff, and scholarly analysis, I researched to discover answers to the following questions: What worlds do those who are knowingly dying inhabit? What choices do they make? What do they do and talk about? The answers to these questions offer an approach to dying that encompasses the liminal period before death, as well as the moment of death itself as a holistic ritual. By learning from those who face death before us, I believe that we can begin to view death as a natural, sacred life transition.