O mercado do morrer: análise das práticas de mercado como criadoras da vulnerabilidade do consumidor

Abstract

The rituals around death have changed a lot over the years, to some extent, in the face of new meanings attributed to death. Even today, the funeral practices are not identical, quite the opposite, despite similarities in the West, influenced by the settlers and rampant capitalism of the last decades. From the nineteenth century to the present day, the market of dying in Brazil has evolved, to the point of being considered for some authors a market that follows the logic of consumption, as they follow many other markets. That is precisely why this market cannot be overlooked, even more so because it has been identified as a source of vulnerabilities. In this context, actions of certain agents are questioned because they are often taken advantage of the fragility of the mourner. Thus, the vulnerability can be real because of the practices existing in the die market, which can subject the consumer to such experience. Since every market is made up of its practices, the potential for vulnerability may be in them, which are not always established in a consumer environment. Therefore, this research sought to identify how the practices of the die market – normative, exchange and representational – and how these practices can create the vulnerability of the consumer. As the research has the words as central in the understanding and interpretation of the practices and of the social actors that make up the market of the dying, the qualitative approach was adopted by means of multiple sources related to the market. The collection of data was carried out through interstructured interviews in depth with market agents and netnography observations not participating in facebook groups of the concessionaires of the public cemeteries of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Data were also collected in factual media of great circulation and on sites that contained market legislation. The various forms of collection arose because of the need to identify the practices of the dying market, so that one could analyze the vulnerability through them. The content analysis was adopted for the processing of the data obtained. After the analyses, it was found that market practices are configured in such a way that they bring the vulnerability of the consumer, whether by the normative practices established by public bodies not to privilege the consumer in various respects, either by the market to be surrounded by imperfections, illegal practices and criminal practices, which impact directly on the consumer. However, consumers are not the only ones affected, since practices can also reflect on people who are not even part of the transaction. As those living in the surroundings of cemeteries, which can be affected by actions of cemiteriais agents that impact negatively on the environment – which allows analysis from the point of view of socio-environmental vulnerability – and market workers, who In addition to suffering directly from the negative image of the market, they can still be seen in the perspective of precarious workers. It is concluded that the vulnerability is one of the products of the die market.