A Study On The "Kickback" Phenomenon Of Funeral Directors In L Town,Southern Jiangsu

In recent years,the form and content of rural funerals have changed a lot in our country,with increasingly deeper influence of market logic.This study explores the internal mechanism of such changes by studying the phenomenon of kickback received by the person in charge of funerals(funeral directors)in L town,southern Jiangsu.Charging kickback is actually an unethical behavior,which is called "death fortune" by the local.However,this behavior has not been reduced because of such criticism,while turning out to be the method adopted by most funeral directors.How did this unethical behavior of charging kickback occur and continue? This article conducts research from the perspective of embeddedness,combined with semi-structured interviews and participatory observation methods.This article divides the embeddedness of the kickback into three parts,examining the interpersonal interaction between the industry and the funeral director with structural embeddedness and relationship embeddedness,examining the interpersonal interaction between the funeral director and the host with moral embeddedness,examine the cultural and institutional background of interpersonal interaction mentioned above with the system embeddedness.At the market level,the study found that funeral supplies stores occupy the position of the structure hole of the funeral industry through one-stop services,and have a high resource allocation and profit acquisition capacity.At the same time,funeral directors are entrusted by the host to become the structural hole between the funeral industry and the host.Therefore,practitioners represented by funeral supplies vendors all sent kickback to funeral directors.Within the village,different funeral directors adopt different strategies based on their own moral image.First of all,the traditional funeral director refused to collect kickback for the sake of maintaining the interpersonal order of the village and his own moral image.Second,most funeral directors who participate lightly in the industry introduce the funeral industry personnel to the host in the form of reminders and help,and negotiate with the industry personnel on the village fee level,so as to collect kickback without affecting their own moral image.Third,a few heavily involved funeral directors exert moral pressure on the host to force industry personnel to collect kickback.In terms of the cultural system in which kickbacks occur,kickbacks are embedded in the informal constraints of consumption,ceremonies,and power structures that run through the entire funeral process.It is these informal constraints that make the status of the funeral director more and more stable.