Transindividual grief after death of an animal companion

Application summary

This study, located in an emerging transdisciplinary field of research where normative ideas of death can be seen as damaging to communities and the planet, investigates grief via human–nonhuman interrelations. Hegemonic understanding of death and grief fail to acknowledge that humans are always ecosocialized within multispecies communities with who we inhabit a more-than-human world. The study reimagines the world by identifying the social in human-nonhuman manifestations of disenfranchised grief that follow the death of an animal companion. It explores grief through Gilbert Simondon´s idea of transindividual, which acknowledges innate, partly subconscious cognitive capacities that lean towards collective processes, which are not restricted to humans. The data, consisting of grievers sensory experiences in a more-than-human world, is explored in group exercise that allows a space for new multidisciplinary interpretations. The analysis will be driven by Simondon´s concept of pre-individual which radically challenges the conventional perception of the world where everything begins from the individual. This approach exposes persisting social hierarchies that undermine the more-than-human social in grief manifestations and offers a critical analysis of human–nonhuman relations in disenfranchised grief. Importantly, the study contributes to the scientific community that aims to challenge traditional hegemonies regards death and grieving, by removing a harmful border that separates humans from the more-than human world. This allows a new understanding of collective grief practices. Specifically, the value of the study comes from affording new concepts for professionals working with grief.