Grief During the Pandemic: The Experiences of Individuals Unable to Fulfill Their Religious and Cultural Rituals

Öz

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many deaths worldwide. Various restrictions and quarantines have been declared to control the number of deaths from the pandemic. Individuals have faced many changes in their daily and social lives due to these restrictions and quarantines. They have also been unable to fulfill their religious and cultural rituals following the experienced losses. The literature has discussed how performing religious and cultural rituals after a loss positively affects the mourning process. This research investigates how individuals in Turkish society who’ve suffered from loss due to COVID-19 during the pandemic but were unable to fulfill their religious and cultural rituals because of restrictions had experienced this process. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four participants between the ages of 45-65 who’d lost a relative due to COVID-19 in the last year. The interviews were analyzed using the interpretive phenomenological analysis. As a result, five major themes were created: negative emotions in the absence of rituals, attributions to rituals with respect to facilitating mourning, mechanisms for coping with loss, compensation for unfulfilled rituals, and being able to perform rituals despite restrictions. These themes have been interpreted from the Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective in the context of symbolic, imaginary, and real concepts. While the symbolic register involves the language, culture, and social environment, the imaginary involves the register in which the subject makes sense of reality in their inner world. Therefore, when considering the societal and cultural function of religious and cultural rituals, the participants had experienced a symbolic inadequacy in naming and accepting their loss. Instead, they tried to make sense of loss in the imaginary register while mourning. The alternative compensation methods the participants developed were interpreted as an effort to find a place for themselves in culture and society (i.e., in the symbolic order).

Anahtar Kelimeler

• COVID-19
• loss
• mourning
• rituals
• Lacanian psychoanalytic approach
• symbolic

Pandemide Yas: Dini ve Kültürel Ritüellerini Yerine Getiremeyen Bireylerin Deneyimleri

Öz

COVID-19 pandemisi nedeniyle birçok kayıp yaşanmış ve artan ölüm sayıları nedeniyle pandemiyi kontrol edebilmek için çeşitli kısıtlamalar ve karantinalar ilan edilmiştir. Bu kısıtlamalar ve karantinalar nedeniyle bireyler günlük ve sosyal yaşamlarında birçok değişiklikle karşılaşırken yaşadıkları kayıp sonrasında gerçekleştirdikleri dini ve kültürel ritüelleri de yerine getirememişlerdir. Alan-yazında kişilerin yaşadıkları kaybın ardından gerçekleştirmek istedikleri dini ve kültürel ritüelleri gerçekleştirmelerinin, kişilerin yas sürecinde olumlu bir etkiye sahip olduğu ele alınmıştır. Bu bağlamda bu araştırma, COVID-19 pandemisi sürecinde Türk toplumunda COVID-19 nedeniyle kayıp yaşayan ancak kısıtlamalar nedeniyle dini ve kültürel ritüelleri yerine getiremeyen bireylerin bu süreci nasıl deneyimlediklerini araştırmaktadır. Bu amaçla bireylerin öznel deneyimlerinin anlaşılabilmesi için 45-65 yaş arasında, son bir yıl içerisinde COVID-19 nedeniyle bir yakınını kaybetmiş dört katılımcı ile yarı yapılandırılmış görüşmeler yapılmış ve bu görüşmeler Yorumlayıcı Fenomenolojik Analiz yöntemi ile analiz edilmiştir. Analizin sonucunda beş üst tema oluşturulmuştur: Ritüellerin eksikliğinde olumsuz duygular, Yas sürecini kolaylaştırması açısından ritüellere yapılan atıflar, Kayıpla baş etme yöntemleri, Gerçekleşmeyen ritüellerin telafisi ve Yasaklara rağmen: Ritüelleri gerçekleştirebilmek. Bu temalar Lacanyen psikanalitik bakış açısı ile simgesel, imgesel ve gerçek kavramları bağlamında değerlendirilmiştir. Simgesel düzlem özne için dil, kültür ve sosyal ortam olarak tanımlanırken imgesel düzlem öznenin içsel dünyalarında gerçeği anlamlandırdıkları düzlem olarak tanımlanabilir. Bu nedenle dini ve kültürel ritüellerin toplumsal, kültürel ve sosyal işlevi de göz önünde bulundurulduğunda katılımcıların yas sürecinde kayıplarını adlandırma ve kabul etme konusunda simgesel anlamda bir eksiklik yaşadıkları ve kaybı imgesel düzlemde anlamlandırmaya çalıştıkları düşünülmüştür. Bu bağlamda katılımcıların geliştirdikleri alternatif telafi yöntemleri kültürde ve toplumsal düzende, başka bir deyişle simgeselde kendilerine yer bulma çabası olarak yorumlanmıştır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• COVID-19
• kayıp
• yas
• ritüeller
• Lacanyen Psikanalitik Yaklaşım
• simgesel

Kaynakça

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