Advisor(s)

Lisa Gezon

Committee Member(s)

Jordan Kiper
Lisa Gezon
Tina Kempin Reuter

Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

6-18-2026

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

School

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Social & Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

As populations age and chronic illness increasingly characterizes the final stages of life in the United States, end-of-life doulas (EOLDs) have emerged as non-medical practitioners who support dying people and their families through education, companionship, advocacy, and ritualized care. Drawing on a thematic analysis of 18 semi-structured interviews with practicing EOLDs across the United States, this thesis examines how EOLDs conceptualize a “good death,” navigate emotionally intensive work, and sustain themselves in an unregulated and often marginal professional landscape. Situating EOLD practice within anthropological scholarship on death and dying, the study highlights the ways EOLDs challenge dominant biomedical narratives that frame death as failure. Findings indicate that EOLDs prioritize client autonomy, personalization of dying, and relational presence, often beginning their work well before terminal diagnosis through education and advance care planning. This thesis explores EOLDs’ roles in legacy-making, advocacy during dying, post-death care, and engagement with ethically charged end-of-life choices such as medical aid in dying and voluntarily stopping eating and drinking. Despite frequent exposure to grief and loss, the EOLDs in this study and in other research report low levels of burnout and compassion fatigue. I argue that their death-positive worldviews, strong peer networks, and collective models of practice help to protect them from burnout. By foregrounding the lived experiences and moral frameworks of EOLDs, this study contributes an anthropologically grounded perspective to a growing literature on alternative end-of-life care and argues for greater scholarly attention to death work outside formal medical institutions.

Keywords

death doula;death positivity;end-of-life doula

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