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Author: Erica Seruset Borgstrom, Sophie Michell, Sara Mackian

What is it like to research death and loss?

Updated Tuesday, 10 February 2026

Three members of the Centre for Open Thanatology share their insights, experiences and advice on death and loss. 

Find out more about The Open University's Health and Social Care courses and qualifications.

The Open University has a long-established history of researching death-related topics, and the Centre for Open Thanatology, an interdisciplinary research centre dedicated to the study and education of death, dying, loss, and grief across the life course and in diverse contexts. The Centre’s vision is to use research and education to foster open dialogue and critical engagement with death and loss.

This podcast is a conversation between three of the Centre’s members discussing their experiences of what it is like to do research in this topic area. They discuss how others react to their research, what has shaped the work that they do, differences they’ve learned about, and what it is like when a death researcher experiences death in their personal life. 

The recording mentions several projects, online items, and publications – links to these can be found in the further resources below.

Transcript (PDF document145.2 KB) .

Further resources

Centre for Open Thanatology on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/openthanatology.bsky.social

You can find publications written by Centre for Open Thanatology members via the Open University library: https://oro.open.ac.uk/view/research_centre/OThan.html

Follow the links on this page to find other resources from the Centre for Open Thanatology or to study with The Open University. 

Sophie’s Substack where she shares stories based on what she’s found in the archives: https://sophiemhistory.substack.com/

You can also follow Sophie on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sophiemhistory.bsky.social 

Sara’s project on Talking with the Dead: Talking with the dead

Erica’s publications on ‘sensitive’ research and doing death studies research includes:

•    Borgstrom, E., & Ellis, J. (2021). Internalising ‘sensitivity’: vulnerability, reflexivity and death research(ers). International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 24(5), 589–602. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2020.1857972 [free-to-access version: https://oro.open.ac.uk/71096/3/71096.pdf] 
•    Borgstrom, Erica; Mallon, Sharon and Murphy, Sam eds. (2022). Unpacking Sensitive Research: Epistemological and Methodological Implications. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003252320
•    Borgstrom, E. (2018). Using an Ethnographic Approach to Study End-of-Life Care: Reflections from Research Encounters in England. In: Garnett, E., Reynolds, J., Milton, S. (eds) Ethnographies and Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89396-9_5 [Free-to-access version: https://oro.open.ac.uk/52288/1/E%20Borgstrom_ethno%20chapter_2017.11.10_ORO%20copy.pdf] 
•    Borgstrom, E., & Ellis, J. (2017). Introduction: researching death, dying and bereavement. Mortality, 22(2), 93–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2017.1291600 

 

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