Branding in the American funeral industry

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which interpassivity, as conceptualized in the work of Robert Pfaller and Slavoj Žižek, can contribute to understanding the role of brands in today’s commodity form. Interpassivity, like interactivity, implies an active relationship between an actor and an external entity. Interpassivity, however, suggests that the actor is active in order to take on a passive role. As it is used here, it refers to a condition in which a consumer actively delegates her or his emotional expressions to a brand. The integration of brands in funerals is appealing given the abject nature of deathcare, the affective intensity of dealing with loss, and the increasingly rationalized role of the funeral industry in deathcare. Based on a multi-sited ethnography, the author discusses the ways in which brandscapes are becoming more widespread in funeral products and services and are even contributing to ‘themed’ funerals and funeral settings. The author argues that these developments are conducive to conditions of interpassivity and they further the ongoing colonization of capital into human emotion.

We Rise Out of the Cradle into the Grave: An Ethnographic Exploration of Ritual, Mourning, and Death on a Hutterite Colony

“…Despite their diaspora, the Hutterites have not disembedded from their religiocentric traditions. These data contain no trace of a move toward secularization and individualization in funeral rites (Sanders, 2009;Sanders, 2012) or the humanist spirituality of contemporary consumer-based societies (Holloway et al, 2013). Rather, this colony appears to have retained their traditions long shared by the community, perhaps due to the colony's well-insulated agrarian nature and collective ownership that has resisted the trends of modern capitalism as well as their immutable faith in God.…”

“…Increasingly, funerals have a celebratory nature, instead of the more somber mood traditionally associated with funerals in much of the United States (Sanders, 2009). There has also been an increase in branding, personalization, and consumer choice in funeral arrangements and body disposal, reflecting trends of individualism and consumer capitalism (Holloway, Adamson, Argyrou, Draper, & Mariau, 2013;Sanders, 2009;Sanders, 2012). Perhaps this is in response to the critique that American funerals had become rigid and failed to create the space for healing (Romanoff & Terenzio, 1998).…”

Social justice and cemetery systems

“…The profitability of cemetery servicesparticularly in the UShas long been subject to critical scrutiny, particularly given the development of global brands such as Services Corporation International, which trades as 'Dignity'. In these models, multiple opportunities are taken to maximise the profitability of cremation or cemetery services by inducing consumers to purchase additional items and services (Beard & Burger, 2017;Mitford, 1998;Sanders, 2012). The pressure to over-consume is built into any financialised system in order for providers to make the required profit, and there are consequences in terms of the unequal consumption of finite resources.…”

All Equal in Death? Fighting inequality in the contemporary funeral industry

“…With time, funerals have become capitalist endeavours giving ‘the appearance of the exploitation of someone’s loss and subsequent grief’ (Sanders, 2009, p. 448). The progressively rationalized role of the funeral industry reflects ‘the ongoing colonization of capital into human emotion’ (Sanders, 2012, p. 263).…”

“…In the early 1990s, the market began to change as MNCs arrived (St-Onge, 2001; Tessier, 2008), with artisanal funeral businesses becoming their prey (Bousquet & Marengo, 1998); Service Corporation International purchased 15 family-owned funeral homes in Québec in 1993 alone. Typically, when an MNC buys a funeral home, it avoids visible change by keeping the original name and management (Sanders, 2012). This practice focuses consumer attention on the traditional and familiar, projecting an erroneous impression that the funeral home is still a local ‘mom-and-pop’ operation (Smith, 2007; Whittaker, 2005).…”