10 GRIEF ACROSS CULTURES: A REVIEW AND RESEARCH AGENDA REF De Epa SORE1996). Th creates, influences, shapes limits, and defines x Understanding the complex entanglement herween culture and g {sa fist step toward theorizing about grief in a cultur providing support to culturally diverse g theoretically of great importance to understand what the cultural d are. Such differences can tell us much about human plasticity; about important juman relationships and meanings related to grieving: and th awesorne ways in which grieving from culture to culeute is embedded in fully ture is that culture primary message of this culturally {way and in functioning, ongoing systems that make sense in their own terms even if they are stupefyingly nonsensical from the spective of one’ LITERATURE REVIEW ferences across cultures in how ed, and understood. Culeures rays people grieve for various kinds of deaths, and they . For example, one culture may treat 8 miscartia a death to he grieved, whereas another may ignore it. One culture may give eit as no di din this volume (deat re substantial di or grief is express here en, and pos sibly wh how deaths are classifi special atention to # death in warfare, whereas another ma ferent from other deaths. In fat, every topic dise fief, gender, feelings, emotion, culture, cognition, soc travina, family, etc.) is culturally constructed andl could be validly and usefully unclerstood in a pychology (Rose in grieving and in meanings of what one take ety, evidence, hat are alien to the Western culrure version of modern ablatt, 2001). Making sense of the many cultural variations as givens is important from che support and services to diverse rebe & Schut, 1998), ‘A culture isa social construction. One might frame it as viewpoint of understanding grief, providing others, and making sense of our own grieving (St es language, beliefs, practice, social patterns, history, iden- ke a religion, and s0 on. However, it is also important to ssencompassa great deal of variation in language ey; in beliefs, practices, social patterns, religio that encompa tity, something remember that many cult spoken and language fh and so on. Cultures ate fluid, ever eb 1 a ambiguities, nd often entangled in blurry and complicated ways with other cultures. Thus, knowing that someone is, say, culcurally Zulu from South Africa, one still needs to know whether this lig ditional Zulu ancestor beliefs or soinething she understands as Christian, whether she lives in the Zulu homeland of KwaZulu Natal or one of the great cities of South Aries; and whether Zulu, English, Sotho, or some other comprise language is the language of her everyday life and thought, In fact, any simple statement about how people in a given culture grieve is probably so simplistic Bd hunct chap. snay b broad whom for ger to scar genic é that fa cultura, of simil been a1 recogni the cor Differe ° how gti ingtow from eueure ndly swing din wnbe the fully they pos- eas ive dif ath, ally em the se vee ver RO Rar Mi re Speen as to be unhelpful toa person trying to help or support someone from that cul- tuce who is grieving (Rosenblatt, 1993, 1997), Moreover, to understand how ‘an individual from a culture is functioning in bereavement, one needs not only to understand her culture but also to examine the fit between how she is grieving and what her culture appears to ask of bereaved people (Shapiro, 1996). The issue of fit is partly about how much knowing a person's culture or cultures tells about the cultural patterning and resources of the person’s grief, but it also tells one how much, and in what ways, the person’s grief is policed by others (Walter, 1999), pushed along some paths and denied access to other paths. There are many steps on the way toward deep and thorough culeural sensitivity and awareness. Among those steps are writings that characterize great religions of the world (Gunararnam, 1997). Knowing “the” Muslim, Buddhist, and so on view of death and grieving can be a helpful source of bunches and potential insights about someone's grieving, but followers of the great religions are enormously diverse culturally and in their interpretations of and adherence to their religion (Al-Adawi, Burjorjee, & Al-Issa, 1997; chap. 16, this volume; Klass, 1999; Wikan, 1988). Another step chat might on occasion be useful but is no substitute for deep cultural sensitivity is what ‘may be called a fact summary, which in one page or chapter provides a brief, broad overview of a culture. Treating such brief statements as though they necessarily are accurate or necessarily apply to the diversity of people to whom they are said to apply would be a mistake thar substitutes stereotypes for genuine understanding (Gunaratnam, 1997). It may actually be better to startin total ignorance of somcone’s cultural background and try to be genuinely open, curious, and free of assumptions (Gunaratnam, 1997) Another step on the path toward greater cultural sensitivity, but one that falls shore of actually getting there, is what Klass (1999) called a mult cculueal perspective, which presumes that human grief everywhere has a core of similarity. As Klass characterized the multiculcural literature, there has not been an openness to challenging the presumption of universality of a core to grieving, so there isno documentation, just a claim based on untested, undoc- ‘umented faith. Ac the same time, chis presumption makes it more difficult to recognize how different grief is from one culture to another and to challenge the concepts of grief that underlie the multicultural perspective Different Realities in Different Cultures (One way to begin to grasp the challenge in knowing and un. how grief varies cross-culturally is to recognize that people in different cul- tures may have divergent realities, Even the most fundamental matter in try sng to understand grief—the meaning of death, for example—may vary widely from culture to culture. O85 CUL 209The Meaning of Death In the United States, che time of death is generally considered to be the oint at which a person stops breathing, in other cultures, the time of death may be quite differene. For example, in Oman, some people who stop breat ing are considered not dead but temporarily temoved from the present as a esult of sorcerer -Adawi etal, 1997). Even after burial and the end of formal mourning, people may still believe itis possible that ch person will be brought to life by something that neutralizes the sorcery. In. such cases, the initial meaning of death is not an end but a victimization that ‘temporarily eaoves one from the living. On the other hand, there ae cultures—f sample, the Matsigenka of Peru—in which someone may be considered lead before cessation of breathing (Shepatd, 2002) From another angle, one aspect ofthe meaning given toa death has to do with che multiple losses that come with it. These multiple losses vary enor- snously from culture to culture, so the meanings ofa death must also vary. Even losses that seem the same between two cultures—for example, economic losses ot losses of a planned-for fature—may seem similar only when worded in abstract terms. When we get down to specifics, there are many cultures in which the multiple losses that come with a death are far outside the experience of most who write about grief. For example, a young Atmpesh man grieving the death of his father may talk about losing the mentoring he needed to become effec- tive, the loss of help his father would have given him in obtaining a wife, and the strength a young man is able to draw out of his father (Leavitt, 1995), (Parting these ideas into English obscures how alien the Atapesh world of help, and acquiring strength is to Western culture.) In many cultures, deaths are classified od” oF “not good" (Abramovitch, 2000; chap. 4, chis volume). However, what is considered good and what is not may vary icamensely ftom culture to culture. For exarr ple, a good death in one culture may be death as a religious maztyr, whereas inanother culture a good death may be death in extreme old age, surrounded by children and grandchildren An important part of the grieving of qui eties is to develop a narrative about the person who died, how the death, came about, what the death means, whar the bercaved person's relationship ‘swith the deceased, and what has happened as a result of the death (Riches & Dawson, 1996; Rosenblatt, 2000). Across cultures, such narratives deal realities, and those realities are often built a few adults in many soci with an enormous diversity c around cultural scripts or discourses that are widely known and that provide key ingredients or pattems as grieving people work at making sense of a death (Seale, 1998), For example, in a culture in which sorcery is often seen as a cause of death, a grieving person's narrative may talk about who killed the decensed through sorcery, why the deceased was a target, and how the sorcery was carried out (Brison, 1992). African Americans’ grief narratives PAUL C. ROSENBLAT iran ashi ete SE ART EP ch a: of ate cha the Am her | mot} with tues daug The S sus whe tends p Interestaship iches clea ride anew RENO SD aR ee iN q : iF may often deal with racism in the sed and as one of the causes of the death (Rosenblare & Wallace, 2005a, 2005b). However, a narrative acany given tinpe may ni For example, the na rative of a Japanese mothe 1 death of her child will change as che mother's sense o ation of the child changes, as her rel ionship with the chi he child chang: Cultures vary widely in explanations for anges, and as her relationship with the remains of Saiki-Craighill, th, and often several expla nations are available for a pacticulat one explanation is put forward for a particular death, and these may or ma not seem logically consistent to a cultural outsider. Consider Hmong im grants in Australia making sense of child and maternal death (Rice, 2000) Amo {oo heavy a physial lond, cat sh her labor in childbieth was too long and difficult, ehae the life aura of the hor and baby were imbalanced, or that the mother had a chance encounte sprit In he fist cas tress the baby and ma pplanac at make cultural sense are chat the woman eartied 3, the heavy lifting is thought cis toward a pacent may cause the spirit of'a deceased paren to return to take the daughter's li of the Deceased Many people in mest cultures think that # person who died continues te cexist in some form (Rosenblate et al., 1976) and that the deceased maintains contact, at least for awh with che living. In some societies, people typicall welcome this; in others, they fear it. There is great variety in whethersind the living and dead are thought to be in contact wich each orher and in what exactly contact means. For example, deceased relatives may come to che Tora} of Indonesia in their dreams, and those dreams may be welcomed asa porte of coming prospetity (Lollan, 1995; Wellenkamp, 1991). Taiwanese wichows Hsu, Kahn, & Hsu, 201 pang and in the possibility pelieve in che reality othe ghost of adeceased chful and helpful pre the ghost could be ence or could cause serious trouble as the ghi business. One could consider this similariey of sceased in spiritual form as & sign ¢ (Klass, 1996; Rosenblats et al., 1976). However, the emphasis on sitailarity e details of difference that are likely to have en the grief process. There may be a world of difference in in one case the spirit of the deceased isa benevolent, v the spirit is terrifying, and dangerous; when th (0 come versus when i is a distant god with lie pan-life hero who will tries to clear up unfinishe in the continuity of th bosie human processes across cultures submerges t bus impact on chful presence ve spirit p inuerest in che living; when the spirit becomes a largeiturn ro earth to help his family versus being reincarnated in the next child lon born in the community. Such differences may have a great impact on griev lew ing; however, it may he that the grief process and the nature of the spiri by actions ate related to some underlying factor. Goss and k 004, p. 5) per suegested that perhaps the spirits of the dead are much more likely to be benew bee lent in societies where people have a great deal of freedom to choose pn ocial bonds, for example, where marriages are not arranged an! where adults (w. 1 the freedom to be close to or cstant Feom parents nee pun The Notre of Grief fe ‘ultures differ greatly in how grief is expressed. For exumple, bereaved 7 people in some culeures often somaticze grief so that a grieving person often tou fecls physically ill (Abu-Lughod, 1985; Fabrega & Nutini, 1994; Prince, ther. 993), Cultures also differ greatly in who grieves, how they grieve, and how ples much they grieve. tn some cultures, che dead, and not the living, are thought Ame to grieve the most (e.g., among the Matsigenka of Perus Shepanl, 2002), and wide then it isthe reactions ofthe living tothe grief of che dead that greatly inf : hush tence what goes on after the death, § quite Cultures differ greatly in the excent to which grief involves remember cone, ing ot forgetting the deceased. Among che Achuar,a Jivam cultural group of ; tures caster Ecuador, bereaved people exert considerable effot to forget the dead (Taylor, 1993), including their names, individuality, and deeds, distancing the connections they had with them in life. The process is facilitated by the postdeath transformation of the image of the deceased t0 a troublesom vengeful, or murderous entity. The dead are seen as intensely and as caltur not wanting to separate from the living, and survivors fear the connection the $ leceased might want with them. Immediately after a death, Achuar pe t will fel and express something that could be glossed in English as grief—with : women wailing and appearing to be distraught and nostalgic and men appear 5 ing in public to be enraged and perhaps wailing implicitly or in private. Soon, iter, a series of rituals is held ro resluce the connection of the living cad, Women, however, are more likely to ail for the decea id treat the deceased 2s sill kin, whereas men will deny their relation. highlis ship with the deceased. Both genders, bue particularly men, will distance the inka, Jeceased by using only a generalized pronoun in speaking about ot addressing restitu the deceased and by working at imagining the deceased as decomposing \ emptin ther than as the person he or she was when alive. Soon, the name of the § A jeceaxed la recycled by being given toa newborn i ngten Some culeures have ideas about something like ; useful t mn some way has gone wrong (Rosenblatt, 1997). These notions may be quite . stacy ferent ftom such pathology as defined in the West (Shapiro, 1996). A cul ; lalomwve ture may have sense, for example, that grieving that g 30 long or not : bination 212 PAULL. ROSENBLATTlong enough, that is too expressive of feeling or not expressive enough, isa prob- Jem, To illustrate, a grieving Balinese person who is visibly sad or upset is seen by other Balinese as vudnemable in many ways, and they may try to cheer the person up (Wikan, 1990). For the Balinese, visible sorrow is pathological because of the trouble it may bring. The Toraja worry about a person who does not cry immediately after a death or who grieves too much, for too long (Wellenkamp, 1988), A bereaved Toraja who lacks emotional equanimity is perceived by other Toraja as at great risk of physical and mental difficulties, punishment from the ancestors, and vengeful behavior from others who take Offense at what the person does while he or she is in an intensely emorional State (Hollan, 1992). However, what is geief pathology in one culture may be Appropriate in another. For example, a mother in Cairo, Egypt, who was close to catatonic with grief for years after child died would not be seen as deviant there (Wikan, 1988). In many African American communities, bereaved peo ple ofeengrieve much mote intensely ata funeral than iscommon for European ‘Americas (Rosenblate & Wallace, 2005a). On the other band, Taiwane ‘widows are discouraged from crying in front of the body of a recently deceased husband (Hsu et al., 2002), although later on they are free to ery and may do so quite intensely, Thus, from a cross-cultural perspective itis risky to take the Concepts of grief pathology from one culture and apply them to people from cul- tures in which grief is conceptualized dlferently (see also chap. 7, this volume). Cultures differ in how they categorize what in English would be defined as vief. In English, grief isan emotion. Emotion theorists have different ways ofdefiningemotions, but for the sake of argument let us say an emotion in Eng Tish is a feeling with a verbal label and some sort of cognition attached. Other cultures may think of grief differently, For example, in some cultures grief is thought of as feeing-shought, an inseparable binding of feeling and thought (Lute, 1985; Wikan, 1990). The distinetion issubele but, I think, real. Furure research could examine the feeling-thouight idea and other conceptions of ‘ross cultures to understand human plasticity and the grief of people in cultures that canceive of grief in those ways. “There isalgo the issue of what exists in various cultures in the emotional space that in the English language is expressed with the tern grief, a word that highlights sorrow and sadness. In some cultures, that emotional space is inhabited by something else—for example, the deste for revenge or to exact restitution (see Bagilishya, 2000, who wrote about Rwanda}—or emotional emptiness. “Across cultures, there are eriough seemingly different and unique “feel ing terms” that describe what people experience after a loss that it might be useful to explore what these differences imply about grief A comparative study might explore what underlies such diversity in grieving a, for example, lalomuein and fago among Lfaluk people in the Pacific (Lutz, 1985); the com bination of sadness and anger, of grief and indignation, that demands com- mig across cuLTURES 213,pensation among the Kaluli of New Guinea (Schieffelin, 1985); and grief expression in Iran (Good, Good, & Moradi, 1985), which includes feelings of duty, the motal rightness of anger at being victimized, and identification with the kin of religious mareyrs Cultural Context and Grief Every culture provides aset of contexts for grieving, situations and expe riences that profoundly affect the living and that often are a major source of how deaths come about. By this mean contexts such as poverty, warfare, and racial discrimination. These contexts, which of course are filtered through cultural meanings and conceptions, can have an enormous impact on griev ing (see also chap. 4, this volume). For example, governments are often ot indirectly responsible for many deaths. These inchude the deaths of political opponents; people forced to live in dangerous or unhealthy loca- tions: people who because of political decisions by others are denied adequate food, police protection, health care, or housing; people forced to work at dan- gerous jobs; and people forced into a migration that can be life threatening. Grieving a death caused by a government can be risky. For example, people in Latin America grieving for relatives who have been “disappeared” or mut- dlered during times of political violence typically have to refrain from com rmunicating their thoughts and feelings about the disappearance or death to othets (eg., Hollander, 1997; Zur, 1998). Self-censorship in grieving might well give the grief powerful elements of emotional control, distance from others, ear, and unreality, as well asa possibly very difficult, large disjunction between what the grieving person does in private versus in public To consider anather example, genocide may also provide a context that has an enormous impact on grieving. For example, during the genocide in Rivanda, hundreds of thousands ofthe dead did not receive proper funeral rit uals. According to Rwandan beliefs (Bagilishya, 2000), when proper funeral and mourning practices are not followed, misfortunes arise. Knowing that this will happen, a Rwandan grieving for loved ones killed in the genocide will experience not only grief for each relative ost bur also emotions linked to the Joss of a way of life and an ongoing family as well as feelings about the conse- quences of the failure of the proper rituals to have been followed. Cultural Variation in Mourning and Grief The distinction is often drawn between mourning (cultural practices observed by people connected in certain ways to a person who has died) and arlef (feelings and thoughts of people who have experienced a less that are ‘ot part of mourning). This distinction once made sense to me, but | think now it isa blurry one. Perhaps itis never possible to know whether grieving 214 PAUL. ROSENBLATT eso. het She caeapiRCS Rene: ina dem: that shape thed inth cloth fain: 1976 ety t wid alec tosit activi they widos wwidor here ties todes the re reflec high | 1 rituals Wiche (Pella woud, includ ‘The § F nobleatief slings ation st sorte emai an pesnbesamsias coran expression of grief is unconnected to mourning. Perhaps most, ifnotall, mourning practices are tinged by grieving, Perhaps grieving reflects the demands of mourning, particularly when mourning necessitates major changes in everyday life (cf. Stroebe & Schut, 1998). Those caveats aside, itis clear that many cultures have certain mourning practices that scem to limit and shape when, how, and how long people grieve. In the following sections, I dis- cuss the common practices of marking and isolating the bereaved. In some cultures, bereaved people in certain categories (e.., children of the deceased, widows) are marked in some way that sets them off from others in the community—for example, their heads are shaved, or they wear special clothing (Rosenblatt et al., 1976). In some cultures, bereaved people in cer- tain categories are isolated from most or all other people (Rosenblatt et al., 1976). The cultural meanings of these ritual activities vary widely from soci ety to society. Among the Zulu of South Aftica (Rosenblatt & Nkosi, 2007), ‘widows typically are marked by wearing special black clothing for l year and are relatively isolated from others (e.g., they are not supposed to interact directly with others, otto attend various social events, and they are required to sit behind others rather than with or in front of them). These mourning activities of Zulu widows express respect for the deceased husband, show that they are proper Zulu women, and protect others from the bad fortune that widows are believed to radiate. Also, other Zulus may fear that a Zulu widow isa witch, so they are strongly motivated to keep their distance from her. A. widow's grief is quite likely shaped by marking and isolation, which reduce her contact with people who might be supportive and reduce her opportuni- tiesto talk about the death. This means she has relatively litle opportunity to develop grief narratives through conversing with others, At the same time, the marking and isolation give the widow more time to feel, to think, to reflect, to live the grief rather than having it be buried under the demands of high levels of interaction with others In some cultures, grief centers in important ways on the remains of the deceased. For Bosnian Muslims (Pollack, 2003), a failure to carry out certain rituals involving the remains of loved ones means one cannot move on in the mourning process, perhaps cannot even accept that the loved one is dead Without those rituals, the soul of the deceased cannot move on to heaven (Pollack, 2003). Engaging in the proper rituals might also symbolize (to the world, to other Bosnians, to Serbs, to politicians) various political messages, including the horror and insanity of massacres that killed so many Bosnian Muslims and of what has transpired in Bosnia since then (Pollack, 2003). The Search for Grief Universals and Differences From a positivist perspective, looking for universals in bereavement isa noble activity. The search for universals can help us recognize what is present GRIEF ACROSS CULTURES = 215 Precinctsal (or most, orsome) of humanity. It can help us see what is basic to human hiclogy, social relatio ind he hopefulns with thinking that there is a common founda s,and cul ips, and cule ion for understanding ons another. We can know, for example, that in societies all aver the world many set by the after the death. Also people are obvi th of someone close to them, and the wer the world, deaths bring nainy losses—not jst the loss of the person bur the lossof pl leceased’s economic contributions and companionship, shared me ks may find then. On che other has fram a postmodern perspective (e.g, Kwale, 1996; Rosenau, 1992), looking for lupset may contin niversals is rather pointless, IFwe look for universals, we will mislead ourse s all th ecifics, details, contradictions, and variably about the nature of knowledge and will extremely usell informa: jon that is bound up in the 1nd the narratives that lfferent from place ro place, time to time, context lu context, person t Related to the crucial importance of difference is that there are enormous, ancl as yet not well studied, challenges in translating bereavement feeling terms ther. A frustration is that slate me terms donot fromone language tr translate poorly, from one language and culture to another. For example, Lute 1985) wrote about the terms lalomaueiv and fago, part ofthe vocabulary of grief h English language approximation of the terms, but that rough translation does not capeure lin 1 Haluk, a Pacific acoll society. [vis possible o rendler a tou zuistic, cultural, emotional, and historieal context or the full meaning of th jets. In fact, even when cermsappearon the surface to translate well chese can ifferences in context and connotations thar the appearance of simi «meaningless. For example, widows in the United States and Zula of feeling angry about the death of isband, bue the U.S. widow may feel angry abour suspected medical malprac iecor the lessof a planned! future, whereas the Zulu widow may feel angry about aft tha : voverty with which she is ar-long the witeh wer husbardy th left to cope on he or the burde mourning practices (Rosenblatt & Nkor To consider another example, Hsu and Kalin (1998. Taiwanes gs of loss, guile, unfin and by “doing about Taiwanese widow ivities engaged in by some oft widows chey interviewed, Some widows dealt with ions to their deceased hu Buddhist ritual, paying for a smething for himn"—perhaps cha 2 finaneinl support to the husband's mot! ings and activities and whae one could draw similarities between these fe might. commonly obs ws in the United States. However, co inte pret those ehings that oblivious to differences that might be sul stantial hetween Taiwanese and U.S. cultures. For example, ranslace from Chinese into los, guilt, unfinished business, or continuing ob ince ‘dion dice conte profa‘may be quite different in Taiwan than they are in the United States. The activ- ities, although superficially alike, may be quite differenc in what they require of che widow and what they mean. Hsu and Kal, alert to the possible differ ences, wrote chat “there were important cultural and linguistic differences in interpreting emotional terminology. As with many other languages, intended meanings were frequently hidden by surface rerms that made use of proverbs, idioms, and other forms of metaphor” (p.275). They discussed the rich cultural context of Chinese widow obligations, the Chinese concept of sel, cultural rules about being reticent about feelings and not expressing certain feelings directly, Chinese concepts of harmony, and Chinese conceptions of being a ood wife. So someone in the United States might say, “Whar Taiwanese wide ‘ows do sounds familiar,” but che more one understands about meanings ancl context (and I have simplified what Hsuand Kahn wrote), the more one under stands that the equivalence might be superficial and the underlying differences profound, great, and of the utmost importance. RESEARCH AGENDA Researchers in the ficld of grief and mourning need to give the highest priority ro rich studies of grief in diverse cultures. Such research would include data on indigenous terms, concepts, relationships, theories, belies, understandings, philosophies, values, and local practices. To be usefully informative about culture, those studies would examine what is in those cul- tures, the understandings, ways of talking, and so on, rather chan exploring how their practices fit into an mesh with universalistic theory and research findings. Research is needed thar is free to come to new conceptions and understandings of grief. Such research would certainly be a strong basts of practice, if practice is appropriace with people from the culture in whieh che research was conducted (see Almeida, 2004; see also chap. 7, this volume). This type of research also would develop alternative theories that might bet- ter fit the culture under study and could conceivably challenge researchers andl practitioners in the nied States and other countries who are working with more or less shared understandings of grief to look at grief in new ways (see Curter, 2001) The research almost certainly would not fit dominant models for study. ing grief represented in this volume. For example, research in some other cultures might focus on lamentation (Wilce, 1999) or other forms of grief expression and communication that are not common in the cultures in which bereavement is usually studied. Also, the research in other cultures may focus oon changing forms of grieving or diversity in forms of grieving as the culture changes. Some of those changes may come from the influence of Christian or Muslim missionaries (Wilee, 1999), although even in those cases we must GRIEF ACROSS CULTURESbe alert to the enormous diversity of local practice and belie associated with arious worldwide religions (see, e.g., Wikan's [1988] discussion of Islam). We must also be alert to the possibility that the changes themselves are sources of grieving as people grieve a lost way of life (see, e.g., Prince [1993], who dis- cussed the Cree of northern Quebec). Researchers also should realize that it is possible for adopted belie and practices surrounding bereavement to coex ist with chose from the culture's past (Adams, 1993; Crain, 1991; Rosenblatt & Nkosi, 2007, Such cross-cultural research would certainly look wt how grief is linked to other aspects of culture. Wikan (1988), writing about grief in Egypt and Bali, made a strong case for looking at cultural conceptions of health and san- ity; that is, how people grieve or do not grieve is linked to what is considered ood for their health and what is considered sane. Research that is sensitive to culture must also be sensitive at a method: ological level, One cannot presume that the methods one sould use in studying bereavement in cultures where psychology bas flourished would be appropriate in other cultures. Every aspect of research might have to fit che cultural setting. For example, itis much more challenging to conduct inter. views in a culture in which a direct question or a follow-up question may be considered nude (Rosenblatt & Nkosi, 2007). In fact, it may even be difficult to sectuit people to talk about bereavement. Hsu, Tseng, Banks, and Kuo (2004) needed 2 years to recruit 20 women informants in a study of Taiwanese grieving after stillbirth. Most women they contacted refused to pat- ticipate, saying they did not want to cry again or did not want to bring bad luck into their lives or would be going against how other family members felt about how to deal with the tragedy if they gave an interview. In some cultures, an older person would never reveal hisor her emotions toan interviewer who was the age of his or her children (Bagilishya, 2000). In research on Zulu widows by Rosenblatt and Nkosi (2007), many people in the communities where che study was conducted thought it was an insane pursuit of bad luck to talk with widows, who carried bad! luck with them and were possibly witches. Of course, the questions asked of people cannot be based on universalist assumptions that the terms used in esearch interviews in one culeure (ei. grief) are meat ingful in, or even translatable into, the language of, another. In some cultures crucial aspects of people's thoughts and communication about the aftermath ofa death might not be statements of feeling or memory but something else— forexample, proverbs, tales, parables, and culturally meaningful nonverbal ures (Bagilishya, 200 The results of this proposed research might challenge Western under: standing of the emotions of grief. For example, in the metaphors for grief in Tagalog (a dominant language in the Philippines), grief is talked about as an intense pressure erupting from the chest or as a hatd feeling, like tears of stone (Palmer, Bennett, & Stacey, 1999). 218 pauLe. ENBLATT ROME ett whit a lir seri tern that Klas sala prod cults fore Stro addr appr ands atief hum: and j must thing whic ifthe abou 1994 thant unde: open what how i wrolle other Absen thswith n). We ho dis- that it nblate linked st and dsan- dered thod- Ibe tthe ater. ay be ‘cult Kuo ¥ of par- luck the vith res wh in Culturally sensitive grief studies could eventually lead to a typology in which most or even all cultural variations in grieving would seem to fall into a limited range, perhaps of whac Klass (1999, p. 165) called “archecypical scripts.” In that way of thinking, there are cross-cultural differences in pat- terns that recur, perhaps among them would be feelings connected toa belief thata death has been caused by a malevolent force and that calls for vengeance Klass (1999), however, asserted that “death ... can be regarded as a univer- sal arouser of something called grief” (p. 165), although which deaths would produce which reactions would depend on interpretive schemes provided by culture, The scheme might include interpretations of death (e.g., as pollut- ing or dangerous) ancl of matters related to who died or individual mourners, for example, gender, emotional control, of death through illness. Similarly, Scroebe and Schut (1998, 1999) have offered a dual-process model that addresses cultural differences in loss-oriented versus restoration-oriented ‘approaches to dealing with a death. Their model also assumes that grief is uni versal, although culeutes differ markedly in the context, rules, expectations, ‘and so on thar they provide for grieving people. For grief research and theory to advance, they must be informed by cross-cultural information and perspectives. To be effectively cross-cultural, arief studies must be freed from a “science” that assumes all cultures and all humans can be understuod on the basis of principles, concepts, categories, and processes that make sense in English and a few European languages. It ‘must move to a science in which not everyone can be measured on every- thing, in which measurement is always a matter of great skepticism, and in which contradiction and difference count fora lot, Grief studies can advance if they are freed from ethnocentrism, the assumption that what makes sense in fone culture makes sense in all. Ethnocentrism may lead to generalizations about or idealizations of all cultures or of “primitive” cultures (Walter, 1994-1995). Iralso may lead to the belief that the psychology, sociology, and thanatology developed in one culture offers the best or even the only way of understanding people in other cultures. The reality is that with a genuinely ‘open perspective on culture, everything is open to question—what is what are standards for human and family functioning, what is “normal,” and how iv is we know what we know. 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