IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v26y2021i4p775-791.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comprehensive or Comprehensible Experience? A Case Study of Religion and Traumatic Bereavement

Author

Listed:
  • William McGowan

    (Liverpool John Moores University, UK)

  • Elizabeth A Cook

    (City University of London, UK)

Abstract

The first half of this article provides a brief overview of two respective projects concerning traumatic bereavement, in which religious faith appeared to feature amid a constellation of significant coping and sense-making mechanisms for survivors. After presenting some illustrative examples of the kind of data produced in the course of our research, the second half of the article develops a retrospectively critical appraisal of our data collection and corresponding analysis practices. In questioning the extent to which our accounts of our participants’ accounts can be considered adequate representations of social order, we critically explore the relative potential of ‘reflexivity’ for bridging the experiential gap between researchers and participants. Taken together, these reflections prompt a return to the salutary question: what counts as sociologically ‘see-able’?

Suggested Citation

  • William McGowan & Elizabeth A Cook, 2021. "Comprehensive or Comprehensible Experience? A Case Study of Religion and Traumatic Bereavement," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 26(4), pages 775-791, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:26:y:2021:i:4:p:775-791
    DOI: 10.1177/1360780420978662
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1360780420978662
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1360780420978662?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:26:y:2021:i:4:p:775-791. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.