مطالعۀ کیفی مکانیزم‌های یادآوری و غفلت از مرگ

افراد و مکاتب مختلف همواره دربارۀ مرگ به‌منزلۀ راز دیرپای بشر تامل و جامعه‌شناسان از منظرهای مختلفی دربارۀ مرگ و حواشی آن کنکاش کرده‌اند. حوزۀ جامعه‌شناسی مرگ، سرشار از قلمروهای نامفتوح نظری است که بصیرت‌های جالب‌توجهی از جامعه را نصیب پژوهشگران می‌کند. این مقاله در پی پاسخ به این سوال است که افراد در تجربۀ زیسته‌شان چه مکانیزم‌هایی را برای یادآوری و غفلت از مرگ به کار می‌گیرند. به این منظور با رویکردی کیفی، مصاحبه‌های پدیدارشناسانه‌ای با 23 نفر از افرادی که در رویارویی با مرگ، تجربۀ زیستۀ مهم و جالب‌توجهی داشتند (نمونه‌های حدی) صورت پذیرفت و با تحلیل تماتیک متن مصاحبه‌ها، مکانیزم‌های یادآوری مرگ در هشت مضمون اصلی رویارویی با مرگ دیگران، پرسش‌های ذهنی یادآور مرگ، تجربیات نزدیک به مرگ، ساختارهای اجتماعی یادآور مرگ، یاد مرگ در روابط بین فردی، مصرف فرهنگی یادآور مرگ، مناسک دینی یادآور مرگ و یادآوری مرگ با هدف فرار از وضع موجود و مکانیزم‌های غفلت از مرگ در پنج مضمون اصلی غفلت از مرگ، غفلت‌های حاصل از زندگی روزمره، نگرش‌های کژکارکردی به مرگ، پرهیز از مراسم مرگ و پرهیز از مکالمات یادآور مرگ استخراج شد. در انتها با کاربست یافته‌ها بر وضعیت پاندمی کرونا ملاحظاتی برای رشد مرگ‌آگاهی در جامعۀ ایرانی مطرح شده است.

Mechanisms of Recalling or Forgetting Death: A Qualitative Study

Introduction:As a longstanding mystery for humans, death has been always considered by various scholars and schools. Sociologists, for their part, have explored death and its aftermath from a variety of perspectives. Still, the sociology of death is full of unexplored theoretical realms, the exploration of which will undoubtedly give researchers significant insights into society. The issue of death is not due to the eternal question of immortality alone. It is, in fact, one of the essential points of civilization struggles, in which the power of any civilization to give meaning to social life is challenged. The way a society deals with the concept of death and dying gives an index that can measure the degree of any semantic systems since facing death can destroy everyday life’s normative and cognitive practices and distort the socially constructed images of reality. There has been a constant conflict between the two major narratives of Islamic tradition and modernity on the issue of death. On the one hand, life has a broad meaning and death is an inevitable transition to the next stage. In the discourse of modernity, the meaning given to social life is associated with neglecting death and institutionalizing this negligence in social structures. Modernity is thus confused when facing the events that inevitably take death out of the state of structural secrecy and expose it as an inescapable truth.  Materials and Methods:This article sought to answer what mechanisms people use intentionally or unintentionally in their lived experiences to recall or neglect death. For this purpose, a qualitative phenomenological study was designed and conducted. A purposive sample of 23 people, who had significant lived experiences in facing death, was drawn. Then, phenomenological interviews were done with them. A voluntary assistant in a cancer treatment center was one of them and a voluntary doctor in war was another. A veteran wartime commander was also another interviewee. The four interviewees had done extensive religious and philosophical studies with published papers and books on death and dying. There was also a documentary film director, who had worked in the field of death experiences of other people. An old university professor, who was a Darwinist and a participant of monastic circles associated with death and ghosts, as well as a man with a long experience of loneliness were among the interviewees. Four others had a highrisk job or situation, i.e., working in a mine neutralization company and being already severely hurt, being threatened to death by terrorist groups, narrowly escaping previous assassinations, and struggling with cancer. Seven people had experienced the sudden loss of either their parents, children, or friends in earthquakes, accidents, or suicides, which had then inspired them to think about death. The researcher was also given a chance to interview with a lady whose spouse was a nuclear scientist assassinated by Israeli terror squads. The interview scripts were analyzed via thematic analysis. Discussion of results and conclusion:The results were expressed in two categories: death recall mechanisms and death neglect mechanisms. Eight main themes formed the subcategories of the former, which were witnessing the death of others, mental mutation evocative of death, neardeath experiences, social structures reminiscent of death, remembrance of death in interpersonal relationships, cultural consumption reminiscent of death, religious ceremonies reminiscent of death, and cautious recalling of death to escape any disliked circumstances. The latter, i.e., death neglect mechanisms, contained 4 main themes of death neglect: death neglection stemming from everyday life, dysfunctional attitudes toward death, avoidance of death ceremonies, and avoidance of death reminder conversations. Finally, using the findings on the Corona pandemic, some considerations were made for the growth of death consciousness in the Iranian society.