moral economy

Considering the Religious-Social Shaping of Technology

The following text is a chapter from the book When Religion Meets New Media. The aim of the book is to develop a systematic exploration of how religious communities engage with a variety of new media technologies. This chapter provides a background to the guiding methodology of the book — the “religious social shaping of technology” approach.

Struggling for Equal Burial: Funeral Administration in Early Soviet Union

Bolsheviks’ program of separation of Church from State involved a bunch of issues connected to the abolishment of social and confessional inequality. Funeral reform initiated by the government decree on funerals and cemeteries (1918) was a part of this program. The decree stated the abolishment of funeral classes, deprived Church from all funeral incomes and stated “equal burial for everyone.” The paper, based on the materials from State Archive of Moscow Region (GAMO), reflects the results of the atheist funeral reform in Moscow in 1920–1930s.