The Open University has a long-established history of researching death-related topics, and the Centre for Open Thanatology, an interdisciplinary research centre dedicated tothe 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.

In this podcast episode, Centre Director Erica Borgstrom talks to Danny Conway on his research into the unexamined tradition of men voluntarily digging the grave when a neighbour dies, focusing on communities in the West of Ireland. You’ll hear more about what gravedigging involves, why people do it and the traditional practices surrounding it.

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

• Find out more about The Open University's ⁠⁠⁠Health and Social Care courses and qualifications⁠⁠⁠.
• Follow the Centre for Open Thanatology is on ⁠Bluesky⁠
• To learn more about Danny’s work, you can read his doctoral thesis on Voluntary Gravedigging in the West of Ireland here and on supplementary work the OpenLearn platform.

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

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.

In this podcast, Centre director Erica Borgstrom is joined by Sophie Michell, a post graduate researcher and historian, and Sara Mackian: a senior lecturer in health and wellbeing. The episode dives into their experiences of what it is like to do research into death and loss. 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.

• Find out more about The Open University's ⁠⁠Health and Social Care courses and qualifications⁠⁠.
• Follow the Centre for Open Thanatology is on Bluesky
• You can find publications written by Centre for Open Thanatology members via the Open University library.
• Sophie’s Substack where she shares stories based on what she’s found in the archives. You can also follow her on Bluesky
• See Sara’s project on 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
• Borgstrom, E., & Ellis, J. (2017). Introduction: researching death, dying and bereavement. Mortality, 22(2), 93–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2017.1291600

Listen to the fourth episode of this academic year’s Open Thanatology Talks! Podcast series. Recorded during The Open Thanatology and University College London (UCL) Marie Curie Palliative Care Department’s joint conferenceon the 25th June 2025, this episode features a panel discussion around the question of where next for Advance Care Planning? Provocation and PolicyOur regular podcast hosts, Dr Joanne Jordan (Research Fellow and co-chair for Open Thanatology) and Professor Erica Borgstrom (Professor of Medical Anthropology and co-chair for Open Thanatology) were joined by co-hostDr Libby Sallnow. Libby is an Associate Professor and Head of Department of the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department at University College London. She also works as a palliative medicine physician in the community. For the podcast recording, Libby was joined by three panellists. On the panel were Dr Chetna Malhotra (Associate Professor and Research Director at Lian Centre for Palliative Care in Singapore), Dr Tom Knight (Trainee acute physician and academic clinical lecturer at the University of Manchester) and Dr Maddy French (Senior Research Fellow in Palliative Care and Lecturer in Palliative Care at Lancaster University). We were also joined by a large online audience who contributed their thoughts, questions, and experiences in the chat box during the conference. Recordings from Open Thanatology events are available on the Open Thanatology ORDO repository here.

You can find out more about Open Thanatology here and you can join our news mailing list to hear about new episodes, events, new publications, and much more here. You can also follow Open Thanatology on Bluesky here.