Lost in Translation: Exploring Grief and Care Through Design
I grew up in Germany, attending an international school where, for years, I was the only person of color in my class. My Indian heritage was often a topic of conversation, people asked about Bangalore or Kerala, but never about Berlin or Geneva. Though I wasn’t seen as European, for a long time, that was the only identity I knew how to embody.
I was what you would call a Third Culture Kid (TCK). TCKs spend a significant part of their developmental years in a culture different from their parents’ home country. According to the World Migration Report, as of 2022, 281 million individuals lived outside their passport country, and 31 million of those were dependents growing up as TCKs. This number continues to grow as globalisation shapes more of our world.
The Privileges and Losses of being a TCK
Being a TCK comes with immense privileges: a global perspective, adaptability, and often access to international education. Yet, it also introduces profound losses, both obvious and hidden.
The obvious losses are easy to name: moving to a new country, leaving family behind, and starting over in unfamiliar places. But what about the less visible ones?
In her book The Grief Tower, Lauren Wells describes these hidden losses: “the loss of being known, the loss of belonging, the loss of language, and the loss of culture.” Hidden losses, as she explains, help us articulate why these transitions feel so heavy.
These [hidden losses] are the elements underneath the obvious loss that explain why that loss feels so hard. The hidden losses put words to grief. — Wells, 2021
Reading this book reframed how I understood grief — not only in myself but also in the user interviews I conducted with other Adult TCKs.
The Disconnect: High-Context vs. Low-Context Cultures
Over the past semester, I’ve spoken with therapists, designers, facilitators, advocates, and linguistics professors who work within the TCK space. While the experiences of TCKs vary widely, a common thread emerged: TCKs who grew up in high-context culture households but lived in low-context environments often faced a growing disconnect in their familial relationships.
High-context cultures, such as Indian, Japanese, or Saudi Arabian, value implicit communication, unspoken understandings, and internalised social rules. In these cultures, grief is rarely addressed openly; it’s considered taboo. For Adult TCKs, this often leads to unresolved grief that is rooted in childhood and exacerbated by intergenerational and cultural barriers to open communication. Physical distance only deepens this grief.
Assembling The Layers
This unique experience — intergenerational, intercultural, and distanced — contributes to a larger narrative of grief through hidden loss. As Jamie Anderson beautifully puts it:
Grief is just love with nowhere to go. — Jamie Anderson
My research has highlighted opportunities to redirect this love, to create spaces where it can be expressed, understood, and celebrated. Or perhaps just avenues where the grief can be felt in a supported manner.
Lets get personal, is this TMI?
Settling on this thesis topic was not easy, and sharing my research halfway through the year was one of the most emotional moments of the process. (Spoiler alert: I teared up many times, but that’s a story for another post) Initially, I wanted to focus solely on expressing care. Yet, through my work, I came to realize that grief and love are two sides of the same coin.
There were times during the year when my research felt almost too personal. As designers, we strive to remove ourselves from the process and let the research lead us. But what happens when the research is us, not just on the surface, but deeply and intimately? I’m still learning what it means to design for grief, let alone for the grief and guilt I feel. But when there’s work to do that you cannot ignore, you have to commit.
To create something that felt like a love letter to my friends and family, and those of other TCKs, I first have to address the grief that brought me here. This thesis is my attempt to do just that: to embrace grief and find new ways to grow familial intimacy across distances.
