Death, Social Policy and Ageing

This chapter is concerned with understanding the relationship of discourses of death with the social philosophy of Michel Foucault. Foucault’s theoretical tools ‘make sense’ of discourses of death in institutions such as care homes. While our responses to death and dying would seem to be very personal and therefore individually determined, they are, in fact, greatly influenced by the beliefs of individuals and ‘experts’ who work in institutions providing care. Therefore, this chapter not only examines the limitations of biomedicalised discourses of death and dying, but also importantly emphasises the importance of Foucault’s conceptual tools to methodologically interrogate how death is managed in institutional care.