The dismal trade as culture industry

Abstract

The American funeral industry has become increasingly corporatized and consumer-centric and, as a result, the production-side mechanisms involved in creating, marketing, and distributing its goods have changed. In this paper, I look at four mainstays of the funeral industry—embalmed bodies, burial containers, burial grounds, and funeral events—to examine how people and production processes shape those products. Doing so allows one to view the funeral industry's contributions as a culture industry that helps shape and gets shaped by broader economic and ideological forces. I describe some of the ongoing and emergent processes that allow for shifting roles of both funeral workers and consumers. By emphasizing the production of cultural objects, the symbolic systems that contribute to meanings around death, consumption, and remembrance are revealed. It is through these various products and processes that the industry contributes to cultural management by highlighting or concealing representations of the deceased, prescribing particular ritualistic behaviors, and distributing memorial artifacts as part of a broader material culture regarding the dead.