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3 The Bare Bones:
Theoretical Frameworks
Answering the research questions of this project requires a theoretical framework that is sufficiently broad yet thoroughly nuanced to account for the complex layers and dynamics involved in funerary practices in an evolving death system. The multi-level perspective (MLP) and social practice theory (SPT) spring from different – occasionally antagonistic – theoretical camps, yet both provide valuable frameworks for analyzing different aspects of change and continuity in societies (Hargreaves et al., 2013). In a study conducted on the most useful theories and concepts for explaining socio-technical transitions, the two most frequently listed frameworks by social science experts were the MLP (listed there as ‘sociotechnical transitions theory’) and SPT (Sovacool & Hess, 2017). Both frameworks bring valuable insights into interdisciplinary research concerned with sustainable transitions, yet neither one is all-encompassing. Warde (2014) reminds us that "Theories necessarily bracket off most parts of complex reality to give a parsimonious account of how particular phenomena operate" and that,
"Consequently, a principal effect of any theory is that it [emphasizes] some features of the world and not others" (p. 280). Accordingly, Hargreaves et al. (2013) find that “analyses that adopt only one of these theoretical lenses risk blindness to critical innovation dynamics” (p. 402). To arrive at a fuller understanding of the dynamics at hand within this study, I therefore draw on both theoretical frameworks. In this chapter, I present each framework individually before explaining how they will be combined in the later analysis.
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A useful way of capturing the unfolding of events is through causal narratives, which not only trace the sequence of events, but delineate the story within a unifying framework, giving it a plotline, so to speak. Geels (2011) argues that the MLP "provides such a plot for the study of transitions" (p. 35). This idea of a plotline will be useful for understanding the history and trajectory of the American death system, including the birth of the funeral industry and its expansion and dominance over death-related practices. Furthermore, the MLP illuminates the socio-cultural conditions that have enabled windows of opportunity (Geels, 2010, p. 495) for shifts in the monolithic death regime over the course of history, focusing in particular on the spread of cremation and the recent eco-death movement. While plotlines and causal narratives can help us understand the basic story behind a transition, Geels (2011) also warns us that there is "no single 'cause' or driver. Instead, there are processes in multiple dimensions and at different levels which link up with, and reinforce, each other" – a process termed circular causality (p.
29). Thus, it is fruitless to search for a simple cause and effect or to try to pin any blame, because real life structures do not fall like dominoes or read like tales of good-versus-evil, but are instead a complex entanglement of operations, people, markets, decisions, and interactions.
The three levels in transitions: Landscapes, regimes, and niches
Multiple actors and elements are involved in systemic transitions, making them complex and often lengthy processes (Geels, 2011). Transitions are seen as "non-linear processes that [result]
from the interplay of developments at three analytical levels: niches, socio-technical regimes, and an exogenous sociotechnical landscape" (Ibid., p. 26). The term ‘socio-technical’
acknowledges that such large-scale transitions require changes on both social and technical levels, affecting industries, consumers, infrastructures, stakeholders, technologies, markets, and policies (Ibid.). The three levels interact with one another to create large-scale transitions, or what Geels (2010) labels regime shifts (see Figure 1). Within this framework, the niche and landscape levels are always conceptualized in relation to the existing regime. For example, a niche could be "practices or technologies that deviate substantially from the existing regime"
(such as green burial), while the landscape could be seen as an "external environment that influences interactions between niche(s) and [the] regime" (Geels, 2011, pp. 26-27). Let us turn our attention to each level of the MLP:
23 A socio-technical regime is made up of smaller sub-regimes (such as politics, markets, user preferences, science, technology, and culture), which co-evolve and influence one another.
Furthermore, a socio-technical regime is governed by certain system rules and boundaries that help to stabilize its existence and to coordinate the activities of everyone and everything operating within the regime. Shared beliefs and lifestyles, user practices and routines, institutional regulations, laws and contracts collectively exemplify some of the guidelines of a given regime. In such a stable regime, innovations occur slowly and must build over time via incremental adjustments to reach a powerful new trajectory (Geels, 2011). The terms ‘regime’
and ‘system’ are oftentimes used interchangeably in the literature and represent similar meanings. Therefore, Kastenbaum and Aisenberg’s (1972) concept of the death system could
Figure 1: The multi-level perspective of sustainability transitions. Image source: Sustainability transitions: now for the long term - Scientific Figure on ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-multi-level-perspective-on-sustainability-transitions_fig3_336412104 [accessed 19 May, 2020].
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equally be termed a ‘death regime.’ For the purpose of this thesis, I maintain the original terminology of the death system, but refer to the ‘funeral regime’ to specifically indicate the reign of the professionalized funeral industry over the regime (see Appendix I Glossary).
Niches are "protected spaces" in which innovations can occur, and they are "crucial for transitions" as they "provide the seeds for systemic change" (Geels, 2011, p. 27). Through a three-step process (described below), niches can develop enough momentum to disrupt an existing stable regime, and either be incorporated into it, modify it, or completely replace it.
For this to happen, niche actors must articulate their visions and expectations with increasing specificity, they must grow their networks of supporters, and they must converge their efforts into an aligned, dominant design that has the potential to destabilize the extant system. Geels (2011) emphasizes that "most niches do not emerge within regimes, but often outside them" (p.
37). Gaining traction outside the dominant market can help niches expand within a protected space before confronting the prevailing regime (Monaghan, 2009; Van Driel & Schot, 2005).
As we will see, green funerals started out in small niche pockets and have been gaining traction in recent years, incrementally making their way into the mainstream funeral regime.
The socio-technical landscape provides the wider playing field within which regimes and niches reside. Comparable to Braudel's well-known concept of the longue durée, the socio-technical landscape describes the ongoing zeitgeist of the time, made up of demographical trends, political ideologies, societal values, macro-economic patterns, technologies, and materialities of society that generally change slowly and cannot directly be influenced by niche and regime actors in the short run (Geels, 2011, p. 28). Van Driel and Schot (2005) differentiate the socio-technical landscape further into three types of dynamics: (1) factors that either change very slowly or do not change at all, such as the geographical landscape, (2) rapid external shocks, including wars, economic crashes, or severe fluctuations in oil prices, and (3) slow, long-term trends in a certain direction, including demographical trends, such as the aging U.S.
population. Both slow and rapid developments on the landscape level have influenced the trajectory of the American death system over the course of history, from the Civil War to innovative funeral technologies.
Pathways of transition
Geels (2011) reminds us that every transition is unique, but there is a general pattern that can be observed between the three levels: (1) first, internal momentum builds up around an
25 innovation within a niche setting; (2) the regime comes under pressure from changes within the broader socio-technical landscape; (3) as the current regime destabilizes under the pressure, windows of opportunity create an opening for the niche innovations to take root. This process can further be broken down into phases such as: emergence of an idea, take-off of the momentum, acceleration and growth around the innovation, and stabilization as a new regime is established (Ibid.). Of course, this is a very simplified model of the actual, drawn-out and interwoven processes that happen during a regime shift. Furthermore, transitions can come about in various ways and for various reasons. A change can occur either rapidly or slowly and incrementally, and it can embody either a symbiotic or a competitive relation to the existing arrangement. Moreover, the extent of the change can also vary from minor adjustments to major overhauls. To capture the variety of potential outcomes of regime shifts, Geels (2011) presents four distinct transition pathways:
a. Transformation: The regime comes under pressure from developments in the wider landscape, which leads to gradual adjustments in the existing regime. Niche innovations may influence some activity, but in their under-developed state they do not play a defining role in this transition pathway; the pressure on the regime originates instead in the external landscape.
b. Reconfiguration: Niche developments are advanced to a point where they can comfortably be added onto an existing regime, oftentimes in the form of addressing local needs or solving local problems. The newly incorporated innovations may spark additional changes and adjustments throughout the regime in a ripple effect that can alter the regime's basic structure in time.
c. Technological substitution: Niche innovations are well-developed and ripe for implementation at the same time as tensions are mounting in the regime from external landscape pressures. These tensions open a window of opportunity for the well-defined niche innovations to overhaul the old regime. Internal momentum such as cultural enthusiasm, political support, and high consumer demand can add to the pressure and final takeover of niche innovations.
d. De-alignment and re-alignment: In this scenario, the existent regime disintegrates under extreme landscape pressure (de-alignment), leaving behind an open vacuum.
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Competing niche-innovations emerge and flourish in this space, and eventually one of these competing options crystallizes into a new regime (re-alignment).
Locked into path dependence
Geels (2011) explains that so-called ‘sustainability transitions’ pose unique challenges because they are environmentally goal-oriented and thus geared towards the collective good, rather than purely entrepreneurial and profitable. Hence, they can rarely compete with established technologies in terms of their cost-performance, and it is "unlikely that environmental innovations will be able to replace existing systems without changes in economic frame conditions" (Ibid., p. 25). In other words, for sustainability transitions to be successful, they often require support in the form of subsidies, taxes, policies, or some other form of governmental support, without which it would be difficult for these new ideas to be competitive or financially viable (Ibid.). This is true of any market, including the death market:
For new death management options to spread into a death system's common consumptive practices, they must successfully compete in the marketplace. However, the deathcare marketplace is already replete with established businesses and professional networks committed to conventional funerals and post-mortem body management. (MacMurray & Futrell, 2019, p. 16)
This brings us to the next challenge, namely that sustainable transitions are likely to be met with resistance from the existent structures and dominant players who benefit from the current structures and market conditions (Geels, 2011). For this reason, "Transitions do not come about easily, because existing regimes are characterized by lock-in and path dependence, and oriented towards incremental innovation along predictable trajectories" (Geels, 2010, p. 495; italics added for emphasis). While small changes may be permitted and welcomed, the overall organization is guarded and maintained through a number of so-called lock-in mechanisms, including infrastructures, investment deals, power relations, cultural beliefs and discourses, as well as political lobbying (Geels, 2011). These mechanisms aim to preclude any major changes that might be unfavorable or unprofitable to those in power. Geels (2011) observes how "lock-in mechanisms create path dependence and make it difficult to dislodge exist"lock-ing systems. So, the core analytical puzzle is to understand how environmental innovations emerge and how these can replace, transform or reconfigure existing systems" (p. 25).
27 The system changes, but who changes the system?
Even though actors are not explicitly accounted for in the MLP diagrams, Van Driel and Schot (2005) position regimes at the intermediate ‘mesolevel’ due to their influence on actor practices and preferences, and also emphasize the role that these actors play in determining the direction in which history unfolds. Geels (2011) affirms that the "different structural levels are continuously reproduced and enacted by actors in concrete activities" (p. 29). This begs the attention that individual and collective actors deserve in either maintaining or altering a regime – an element that has been grossly understated by the MLP. A regime or system can only survive as long as individuals utilize it and engage with it and – by doing so – simultaneously perpetuate it. MacMurray and Futrell (2019) pertinently describe the dynamic relationship between social structures and humans in a death system:
People produce and maintain death systems, and death systems structure and constrain how people experience dying and death. Just as death systems will shape the experiences of those within them, those systems may also be reshaped by collective change efforts.
(MacMurray & Futrell, 2019, p. 22)
In this way, death systems can be understood as "culturally negotiated constructs open to critique and modification by societal members" (Ibid., p. 22). While the multi-level perspective helps us to understand change from a macro viewpoint, it does not lend itself well to understanding the daily interactions between individuals and the systems they reside in.
Furthermore, the MLP focuses chiefly on the processes behind innovative change but does not offer much for explaining stages of plateau (Hargreaves et al., 2013). In other words, when a new regime becomes stabilized in a society after a transition, the MLP fails to explain how actors maintain and perpetuate the new system through their everyday interactions. These weaknesses of the MLP are addressed more effectively by social practice theories. In fact, the dependence on actors to reproduce the elements of a system through their individual and collective behaviors lies at the very heart of social practice theories. This strand of theories, introduced in the following section, emphasizes the importance of societal activities (‘social practices’) in understanding the ways in which systems either remain static or change.
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