IN-HOSPITAL DEATH AND THE CHANGE OF THE GRAVE TRAJECTORY: The Cosmological Meanings of Sadness in Moroccan Context during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study examines the institutional changes and topographical landmarks within which the incident of death took place in the Moroccan context by focusing on the topic of in-hospital death during the COVID-19 pandemic. The complicated aspects surrounding the death arise from the process of medicalization, burial, and mourning among the relatives of the deceased. Methodologically, the research is based on a grounded phenomenological analysis of the experiences of relatives (50 participants) who lost their deaths in the first wave of the pandemic in four Moroccan cities: Rabat, Kenitra, Fez, and Missour. The study concludes that the negative attitude of Moroccans towards in-hospital death does not stem from the fragility of health services or the characteristics of loneliness and isolation, as revealed by Norbert Elias’s sociology. However, it closely links to the anthropological factors that construct the personal concept in the Moroccan context as a knot of relationships and looks at the body in its social, cultural and cosmological extensions.