Creating a Place for Dialogue on Death to Form Views of Life and Death – Action Research in the Community

Introduction: Views on life and death are the basis of everyday life for people at the end of life to express their intentions about where and how they want to spend their time, and for healthy people they are the basis for living life to the fullest. Research Aim: Community dialogue would be effective in helping community residents form views on life and death. This study aimed to create a place where healthy residents could talk about death and form views on life and death. Research Method: The study was conducted using the action research method. Residents of the study community who were unfamiliar with death met there and discussed a topic they had designated related to life and death. The meetings were held monthly for a year. About a dozen people attended each time. Notes from the meetings were subjected to qualitative analysis. Findings: A safe place to share time and space was created in the community. The process of creating the place was divided into three phases: the phase of raising interest, the phase of initiating participation and the phase of leading activity, by focusing on the theme of dialogue, participants’ awareness and the balance between the author and the participants. Conclusion: Study participants deepened their thoughts on death through internal and external dialogues and formed their unique views on life and death while pursuing psychological well-being. The group embraced dialogue with empathy, creating a collective narrative about death that recursively empowered participants. The dual dynamics of discovering death both individually and collectively were confirmed.