Min död är min
dödens konventioner i förändring under 1900-talets andra hälft
This is a study concerning the conventions surrounding death and it´s rituals during the latter half ofthe 21th century. The study´s main material is the official magazine of SBF - Sweden´s funeral association ? Memento. By studying the undertaker and the self-image of his services at an intervalof years from 1945 to 2005, one is able to notice certain changes of values concerning what afuneral, a chest and a tombstone really is ? or rather how the meaning of these symbols of death slowly shifts from the ?dignity? of death towards the self-expression of the individual.In the 1940´s towards the 80´s, there is much talk of giving the dead a ?dignified? funeral and burial, and this is how the undertaker defends himself against public critique of his or her´sprofession´s ?trade with death?. In the 1980s towards the 21th Century though, there is less talk of?dignified? burials and more talk of ?personalized? ones. The undertakers of SBF define themselvesand their profession through being able to give the dead a more personalized burial. It is as if the word ?Personal? replaces ?Dignified?, meaning the same thing for an undertaker and his clients. I see this as a natural development in a society where one is able to consume a personality to agreater degree than before ? where life, and therefore death, is ?goods? to be consumed. Whereas the idea of a ?dignified? burial was a first step away from collective rituals dealing with death in old, rural communities, society seems to be taking another step in it´s transformation of the meaningof the symbols with which we define death; the one from a ?dignified? to a ?personalized?ceremony of the passage from life to death.