Grief as Social Fact

This article explores the socialisation of the experience of grief in Southern Benin. Drawing on field research conducted in Southern Benin since the beginning of the 2000s and mobilising interviews and participant observations with bereaved people, I argue that grief is profoundly shaped by interiorised dispositions to think, act and feel, as well as social experiences (from family relationships to religious practices and economic conditions, among other things). The article mainly exemplifies this contention with two ethnographic vignettes, which respectively emphasise the significant place that funerals take locally in the grieving experience, and approach the issue of the socialisation of infant deaths.