California

California provides the context from which Doughty begins her journey and exploration of cross-cultural death rituals. As such, it represents the mainstream and commercial American deathcare industry which Doughty finds highly problematic. Laws in California limit and control the ways that human remains can be treated and laid to rest, thus resulting in a lack of choice and agency in death rituals. The burial of Mrs. Shepard which Doughty handled at her LA funeral home, demonstrates how even natural burials are limited and controlled by the commercialization of the deathcare industry in the United States, for example, by not allowing burials on private property.

Belize

Doughty's trip to Belize is what first introduces her seriously to cross-cultural death rituals, thus acting as a catalyst for this book as a whole. Belize is the first example in the book of a culture in which the family is more...