Introduction: Death, Dying and Participatory Media + Open Section

With the increase in the use of social and digital media in general during the past decade, it is not surprising that social and digital media practices in relation to death, loss and bereavement have continuously increased in the same period. From the sharing of personal grief on dedicated online forums (e.g. Christensen & Sandvik 2013), in Facebook groups and on Instagram (e.g. Christensen et al 2017), to peer-to-peer communities of grief (e.g. Segerstad & Kasperowski 2015) and public engagement in politically motivated deaths such as terror, ideological killings etc. (e.g. Sumiala 2012; Sumiala 2021; Harju & Huhtamäki 2021). During the last decade, research into digital death-related practices has grown accordingly as a strong subdiscipline of various academic disciplines. In 2013, the international Death Online Research Network (DORN) was established as a response to the then emerging field, and now, about ten years later, this network has become an important network for exchanging research ideas and results, for instance through biannual research symposiums. In 2021, the fifth symposium (DORS#5) took place at the IT- University in Copenhagen (in fact, online, due to Covid-19) with the attendance of researchers from more than 10 countries, and after the event, a number of presenters were invited to contribute to this special issue, and we are happy to present the results of these efforts

At stille sig åbent an: sorg som livs- og identitetspraksis

I denne artikel arbejder jeg autoetnografisk: jeg skriver på mine egne sorgpraksisser som etnografisk materiale med henblik på at kunne undersøge, hvad sorg er og kan være, hvordan sorgen helt konkret og specifikt leves og gøres med rod i den sørgendes hverdagsliv. Hvad vil det sige at sørge? Hvordan kan det foregå? Jeg viser, hvordan konkrete ritualiserede sorgpraksisser kan opbygges og reflekterer over, hvad de er dannet af og hvad de er i dialog med med omdrejningspunkt i det liminale og ritualisering, og jeg problematiserer den normativitet omkring sorg og den sørgende, som afspejles i såvel sorgteorier som populære opfattelser af sorg. Jeg argumenterer for nødvendigheden af forbilleder i sorgen, og for at sorg ikke nødvendigvis væsentligst handler om forholdet til afdøde men den sørgendes forhold til sig selv. Tabet er en mulighed for at invitere sårbarhe- den ind i livet.I this article, I write autoetnography on my own grief practices as ethnographic material in order to analyse what grief is – or can be, how in particular is grief lived and performed rooted in everyday life and the liminal of and by the bereaved. What does it mean to grieve? How can it be done? I reflect on how specific ritualized grief practices are constructed, what are their elements? how do they communicate with the sociocultural world around them?I problematize the normativity about grief performed both in academic research and publicly and argue that we need rolemodels and that grief might not mostly be about our relationship to the dead but the bereaved’s relation to him- or herself. Loss is an opportunity to welcome vulnerability into your life