McFUNERALS: The Transition of Japanese Funerary Services

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the professionalization and standardization of Japanese funerals as an example of multi-leveled changes in practices. The term “McFunerals” (Osōgi no Makku-ka) is applied to illustrate how the Japanese funeral industry has embodied efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control in the process of mass-marketing funeral services. Commercialized funeral ceremonies are undergoing processes of specialization and rationalization. This may be viewed as a modern “risk,” to use Beck's term, where individuals are increasingly dependent on industries and institutional structures. I argue, however, that although commercialized funeral services are not risk-free, Japanese consumers are aware of these risks and that ill-suited practices are negotiated out of the market. The new consumer-innovated funeral practices not only demonstrate shifts in values, but also how these shifts are incorporated back into commercialized funeral services by the funeral industry. The analysis of funerary practices is seen as a tripartite process between the funerary customs as experienced as habitus the consumer innovation of practices, and the reinvention and embodiment of new ceremonies by the funeral industry.