ABSTRACT
The nineteenth century saw the formation of the funeral market in France. Within the context of constant interference by Church and State, the first pompes funèbres (funeral companies or undertakers) gradually spread from Paris into the major provincial cities and their outskirts to assume the role of supplier of funeral goods and services. The trade of funeral goods, under the clergy’s rule over previous centuries, became the source of private business prosperity through a process of increasing commodification of the funeral goods on offer. In this chapter, I suggest that the case of the funeral market offers a privileged insight into the way public utilities lead to specific forms of market, in which “market devices” closely link politics and markets, both in their framework and in their “overflowing” of the framework.
