The readiness is all: ways people anticipate dying in the U.K.

My research analyses the ways in which people seek rights and recognition in anticipation of their death. People in the U.K. now live longer than ever before but often in a fragile state of health which affects the ways in which they anticipate their death. While a number of authors have discussed the different ways in which people in the U.K. approach dying (Kellehear 2007, Seale 1998, Walter 1994 etc.), none have so far used anthropological methods to compare different public arenas (geographical, legal, discursive) where this anticipation of death occurs, or indeed, related it to broader theoretical approaches to witnessing (Agamben 1999; Felman and Laub 1992) and recognition (Honneth 1995; Taylor 1992). The public arenas that my research focuses on are: the 'right-to-die' debate (and the vociferous 'pro' and 'anti' campaigners who sustain the debate); the laws which regulate people's 'death decisions'; and a hospice day centre.

The theoretical contribution of this research shows that all three social processes (law, activism and art) purport to offer a form of public recognition of an individual's personhood in their approach to death, in defiance of the well documented public taboo on death in the U.K (Aries 1975, Elias 1985, Gorer 1965). The overwhelming desire of many of my research participants was to gain recognition for the particularity of their deaths; which involved opening up their life to public scrutiny, whether from fellow day-centre patients or from five judges in the House of Lords. Making public claims for recognition-in-dying contained many risks, not least creating unrealistic expectations of what can be recognised. I outline a number of occasions when recognition fails precisely because some aspects of our lives (and deaths) are just too private, too emotional, and too uncertain to be publicly recognised in the way that people might wish them to be.

In addition to these theoretical contributions, my research highlights the vital methodological contribution which ethnographic work can make to controversial and highly divisive debates in bioethics and law - in my case, the 'right-to-die' debate.

In summary, this research pursues four objectives:

First, to offer an analytical and empirical investigation of how different groups anticipate dying by trying to shore up their personhood through attachment to different external forms (law, activism and art).

Second, to shed light on the beliefs and motivations of people who want to legalise a form of medically hastened death in the U.K. and in particular those who are intending to travel to Dignitas in Switzerland for help to die.

Third, to advance inter-disciplinary discussion of end-of-life issues through positioning myself at the nexus of different sub-disciplines (death studies, social gerontology, medical anthropology, socio-legal studies, bio-ethics).

Fourth, to feed back the results of my original and timely research to policy-makers, stakeholders and healthcare practitioners working on end-of-life issues.

I will be based in the Department of Sociological Studies (Sheffield University) under the guidance of Dr. Lorna Warren with whom I currently work on the E.S.R.C funded Representing Self: Representing Ageing project (New Dynamics of Ageing programme).
Additional support will come from Professor Jane Seymour at the Sue Ryder Care Centre for Palliative and End of Life Studies at Nottingham University. I will conduct limited additional research in the U.K. in order to be gain further insights which will enrich the journal articles I intend to write. I will publish 5 articles, deliver papers at conferences (one international), and network extensively among end of life researchers based at the University of Nottingham (where I will be affiliated); the Department of Nursing at the University of Sheffield; and the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath.