"​​​​​​​​Death Brokers: The Informal Economy of the Afterlife in China"

This paper examines the co-evolution of necropolitics and the informal economy of death in 20th-century China. Using a combination of oral histories, archival materials, periodicals, and secondary sources, we retrace the persistence of informal mortuary practices in Z Village near Hangzhou to reveal how local ‘death brokers’— individuals who specialized in the provision of funeral services and ritual maintenance for the afterlife— adapted their informal business practices to an ever-shifting necropolitical landscape. More specifically, we show how the informal business of death brokering emerged in the late imperial period in response to Confucian ritual demands to care for the deceased; how the business was marginalized and then driven underground by successive state regimes that sought to rationalize death; and how death brokering experienced a resurgence in the Reform era, but faced new challenges with changing state approaches to the management of land. Through this analysis we reveal the entangled nature of Chinese business, culture, and statecraft in the realm of death. Our paper makes important contributions to business history, illustrating how, even in the face of relentless political pressure and ceaseless contextual change, informal business activity may persist over long periods of time. We further call on business historians to accord greater attention to the role of ritual in business.