The homeless grief - The loss of non-kin family: Middle-aged immigrant experience of disenfranchised grief over a friend’s death in Western society

Abstract

This article emerged from the intersection of deep personal loss—the death of my friend, Anette, whom I considered family—and the struggle to articulate my grief. By weaving autoethnographic elements of personal stories and reflections about Anette and my other friends with broader sociocultural contexts, this paper invites readers into the world of middle-aged immigrants, where loss and friendships intertwine in ways that are often hard to put into words. It sheds light on the significance of friendships and the marginalization of grief experienced by newcomers facing a friend’s death in Western societies. The exploration integrates insights from the frameworks and concepts of acculturative stress of immigration, friendship, and disenfranchised grief. This convergence underscores the failure to recognize such losses as akin to familial bereavement and highlights the unique context of disenfranchised grief among immigrants. Considering the unstudied junction between the global phenomenon of relocation, the universally recognized ties of friendship, and the shared experience of death and grief, its importance and relevance are indisputable.

This article offers a novel perspective and aims to enhance academic and societal awareness of this distinctive convergence of human experiences. It addresses a gap in the scholarly conversation and emphasizes the necessity of including immigrant realities and voices in developing intervention strategies and policies in local and international social, health, immigration, and other arenas.