Counter-hegemonic bereavement, un-honored grief and reframing loss- a study in political psychology of bereavement, loss and trauma: The case of terror casualties' families' politics of belonging

This research illuminates the connection between trauma recovery and rehabilitation as a result of loss to culture, symbolic politics and public policy. The connection is looked at by studying the relationship between one's eligibility to belong to the collective memory and national commemoration, and effective processing of loss, recovery and post traumatic growth. This paper presents the test of counter-hegemonic bereavement which the establishment prefers to exclude from memory closure, as outing the cause of their death and publicly commemorating them, shakes the hegemonic narrative that enables the reproduction of social power structures. The victim's families will be forced to experience un-honored grief- a sense of "relative deprivation"- as opposed to the families of those whose memory became central in public consciousness after their death. The case study inspected is that of families of Israeli victims of terrorism, who, in relation to the families of Fallen IDF Soldiers, are not entitled to national commemoration of their loved ones and do not gain "VIP" status, thus are not beneficiaries of the special rehabilitation and welfare policy. The rehabilitation of this bereavement group is impeded due to its placing in the hierarchy of grief.