La construction sociale des rites funéraires. Une transaction affective essentielle

Abstract

The article analyses the orchestration of funeral rites on the basis of the work of the undertakers. It shows that emotions integrate into the practical circumstances of the building process of the funeral rite from the point of view of the families in mourning as well as the accustomed professionals. This co-building can be analysed as an affective transaction, a notion on which the article sheds light through a dialogue between the sociology of the emotions and the sociology of social transaction. The article shows in that way the place of emotions in the funeral transaction. Emotions are data which come into the transaction and in the same time modulate the normed social frame that governs the transaction. © De Boeck Université. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.