When: Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Where: Sumner School, 7:00 pm
Dinner, Beacon Bar and Grill, 5:30 pm
Dr. Frances Norwood will talk about her book, The Maintenance of Life: Preventing Social Death through Euthanasia Talk and End-of-Life Care–Lessons from the Netherlands. . The book is based on a 15-month ethnography of home death in The Netherlands and develops from two important study findings: (1) that euthanasia in practice is predominantly a discussion, which only rarely culminates in a euthanasia death; and (2) that euthanasia talk in many ways serves a palliative function, staving off social death by providing participants with a venue for processing meaning, giving voice to suffering, and reaffirming social bonds and self-identity at the end of Dutch life. Her talk will highlight findings from her book and end with a discussion of health care reform in the U.S.
Her book , was recently selected to receive the 2011 Margaret Mead Award.
The Maintenance of Life (2009) is currently available in English and in French.
More information: October 2011 Meeting
anthropologyworks 