Telling Death. Intergenerational meetings and citizen dialogues on funeral and mourning

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted a range of issues relating to death and bereavement. Faced with social distancing and health prevention measures, many relatives were not always able to accompany the deceased or organize the funeral as they would have liked. In this context, both professionals - active in the mortuary and funerary sectors - and relatives had to show adaptation and inventiveness, by proposing, for example, to broadcast a last farewell to the deceased by videoconference. This health and social crisis has therefore mobilized emerging and new practices in the mortuary and funeral field; it has sometimes accelerated their implementation or highlighted them. A good number of these practices, such as everything related to the eco-funeral register (humusation, biodegradable urns, sustainability of graves and cemeteries), are still unknown to the general public, which only becomes aware of them when confronted with the death of a loved one and especially when organizing a funeral. Telling death is a project of scientific communication which aims to inform and sensitize the general public to these new funeral practices which have been observed for a few years in Switzerland. It aims to make more visible the actors involved in the treatment of the deceased, between the place of death and the burial ground, and to encourage debate between researchers and a diverse public on the links between the materiality of death, the action of professionals and the experience of mourning by relatives. To this end, five partners will propose to the public to engage in participatory communication processes based on two SNSF-funded research projects (Necropolis and No Lonely Deaths). Inspired by the research methodology developed and the results obtained, the first step will be to organize and record in the form of podcasts a series of intergenerational dialogues, moderated by the researchers, on the care given to a deceased person and on the mourning his or her relatives experienced. These podcasts will then be used to engage and debate with the public in three very different contexts: during a rich exhibition on the subject of death, organized by the PALP Village et Festival, which will take place in Bruson (Valais) during the summer of 2023; during a participatory forum and 'Death Walk' organized by the Commune de Chavanne-près-Renens with its inhabitants during the fall of 2023; during citizen debates organized by Connaissance 3 - the senior citizens' university of the canton of Vaud - during the year 2024. All of these encounters and dialogues will involve researchers from the Haute école de travail social et de la santé Lausanne (HETSL | HES-SO) and the ColLaboratoire of the University of Lausanne.The Telling Death project will socialize a large audience to the issues related to the funerary transition in progress and inform the public about actual and emerging practices in this field. It will also be an opportunity to evoke ancient skills that are on the verge of extinction or rituals from cultures far from our own; it will encourage debate on the importance of the link between the material conditions of death and the experience of mourning. The podcasts produced during this project will finally be made available to the general public on a dedicated website and may serve as didactic support in other contexts (universities, in the fields of health and social work in particular, death professionals, associations, schools, etc.).