Rising from the dead: delimiting stigma in the Australian funeral industry

Abstract

Workers in the funeral industry are in the unusual and ambiguous position of being proud of the work that they do whilst feeling shunned by the society for whom they provide a service. Funeral staff spend all of their working hours in close association with the dead, and because of this association much of society views them as ‘less than human’ (Goffman 1963). However, because of their belief in the value of the work that they do, most funeral staff are prepared to accept this stigmatisation, even while disliking the effects that go with it. Modern marketing by the funeral industry has attempted to delimit the stigma by presenting images of home and nurturing in its advertising and offering a broader range of personnel and services. This paper, which is part of ongoing research towards the author’s PhD thesis, addresses the question of how such stigmatisation arises and how the funeral industry and the individual workers involved manage this issue both at work and in the social setting.

Key Words:

• dead
• funeral industry
• stigma
• stigmatisation