There is growing comment in both academic and popular writing about the shape and content of funerals today, with general agreement that we are seeing marked changes with a growing trend towards secularisation and personalisation. Despite this, there is as yet relatively little systematic research on the topic. This article reports on a study funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK into spirituality in contemporary funerals. This qualitative study centred around case studies of 46 funerals in the north of England and gathered data from observations of funeral arrangement meetings as well as the funeral and semi-structured interviews with bereaved families and funeral professionals. The way both sets of participants engaged with the funeral and its constituent elements in an active process of meaning-seeking, meaning-creating and meaningtaking was closely aligned with contemporary understandings of humanistic spirituality. There was, however, little evidence of adherence to formal religious belief systems or wider philosophical frameworks amongst the bereaved families but considerable evidence of drawing on religious tradition and specific beliefs to locate personal meaning-making. The authors conclude that the funeral remains a significant ceremonial event which is psycho-social-spiritual in character and purpose.

The subject of Vassos Argyrou's study is modernisation, as reflected in the changing nature of wedding celebrations in Cyprus over two generations from the 1930s to the present day. He argues that modernisation is not a secular, progressive process, that remodels the life of a society, ironing out local differences. Rather, it is a legitimising discourse. It is an idiom which Greek Cypriots employ to represent, and contest, relationships between social classes, old and young, men and women, city folk and villagers. At the same time, by involving modernisation, they are submitting to foreign standards, and accepting the symbolic domination of Europe.

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This article explores the theory of `reflexive modernization' which is primarily associated with the names of Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. It examines the pressures under which the re-definition of modernity as `pure' reflexivity emerged and suggests that among these, poststructuralism has been the most fundamental. It also examines how the theory, by refashioning modernity, strives to maintain western identity over and above its other, the traditional, as well as to retain the privileges that this identity bestows. The article concludes by arguing that the theory constructs a mythical reality which, however, cannot be taken seriously even as a myth. Its narrators are unaware of what their story does but, unlike the narrators of native myths, they utterly contradict themselves by claiming to be guided by `wholesale' reflexivity.