Agencing the circulation in markets. The Financialization of the Funeral Market in France

International audienceDuring the last decade, the market in private death insurance (pre-paid funeral plans) has developped relatively suddenly in France, as has been the case in other Western countries (UK, US, Australia in recent decades). This paper analyses the concrete fabric of the agencements by the various stakeholders operating in this new market. The study focuses on the "pre-paid contract" as the key market device which governs contractual arrangements and essential problems of coordination (Beckert, 2009): value formation (price, payment, capitalization), regulation of competition (the terms of agreement between the co-contractors), organisation of cooperation (the division of labour and tasks between the insurance company and the funeral operator). By observing the competition in supply, and the subsequent competitive alliances formed between the key economic actors, it examines the specific properties of the various pre-paid contracts and particularly the way in which they fix the links and interdependencies between the market protagonists