Communication ecologies and contemporary African American families: A study of Black family death rituals.

Abstract

African American families are shown to include an extended group as family during the death ritual process, with a primary relationship among the family, church and funeral directors.

This study takes an ecological approach to the study of family interaction utilizing Kramer's theory of dimensional accrual/dissociation to describe and explain family communication patterns in the death ritual process. The study also compares the ritual process of African American and white families and how death rituals helps shape African American family identity.

The study finds great similarity among black and white families in the death ritual process, differing in the freedom of emotional expression expressed more by black families. The study also finds that dissociation is evidenced in the death ritual process which is identity-seeking, expressed in myth and entangled in the capitalist process of commodification and commercialization.

Research in family communication has three current limitations: (a) The lack of a general theory explaining contemporary family interaction; (b) The focus on the family unit as the primary object of study; and (c) A lack of consideration of cultural/ethnic variations in family communication patterns. This study seeks to fill this void by studying the death rituals of African American families.