A reasonable grief—discursive constructions of grief in a public conversation on raising the shipwrecked<i>M/S Estonia</i>

The paper uses a debate in Swedish newspapers about the fate of the corpses from the shipwrecked M/S Estonia as a case study, in order to demonstrate how different discourses on grief construct a normative way of mourning. The theoretical vantage point is a discursive perspective on grief where different discourses are regarded as resources and limitations for how to express and make sense of bereavement. It maintains that what are to be considered as normal or deviant are social and cultural constructions, not ontological facts. The analysis demonstrates a notion of normal grief as grief work that moves through a process from emotional reaction to rational reflection, and in which ritual practices play an important part. The study illustrates how negotiations regarding grief and mourning draw on different discourses. It also elucidates how a specific notion of grief is constructed as normal and legitimate at the same time as other manifestations of grief are made abnormal and deviant.