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This article explores the theme of death as a means of illuminating the changing relationship between 'the individual' and 'the state' in the context of post‐socialist Bulgaria. Previous research carried out on rituals and socialist society indicates a close connection between state ideology and the socially constructed 'natural' order – an order partly reproduced through engagement in state‐sponsored life‐cycle rituals, such as funerals. By focusing on the way in which funerals are presently carried out, and more specifically on the way in which villagers talk about death, I suggest that new discourse reveals important changes: a reordering of the relationship between 'the individual' and the socially constructed 'natural' order. The state is no longer such a strong mediating force in this relationship. Post‐socialist reform, therefore, involves more than 'just' political and economic change; it represents a more general breakdown in the total set of relations that constituted the socialist world.

The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change. Katherine Verdery. New York: Columbia University Press. 1999. 185 pp.

"At a time of rising global economic precarity and social inequality, the field of economic anthropology offers solutions through the study of local and contextualized economic practices. This book is made up of an exciting collection of succinct essays authored by leading scholars primarily from the field of economic anthropology, but also featuring contributions from sociology and history. The chapters engage with debates at the cutting edge of research on the topics of Eurasia, the anthropology of postsocialism and the embeddedness of economic practices."