This article explores the relationship between the value of money and the value of human life as it plays out in the financing of funeral ceremonies. It examines how these values are articulated through life insurance policies concerning violent deaths of working‐class black Americans in New Orleans. The article draws on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork (2017–18) in New Orleans, which included participant observation at a black‐owned funeral home and interviews with funeral directors, policyholders, and beneficiaries. By examining the role of life insurance policies in arranging good funerals after bad deaths, the ethnographic analysis demonstrates how life insurance policies are consumed and can produce value at a moment of loss. It explores the paradox that an insurance policy can at once become a resource for the affirmation of human value and a financial risk in itself.

中文翻译：

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死亡人数多，丧礼好：新奥尔良的人寿保险价值

本文探讨了在葬礼筹资中发挥作用的金钱价值与人类生命价值之间的关系。它研究了通过有关新奥尔良工人阶级黑人的暴力死亡的人寿保险政策如何阐明这些价值观。本文借鉴了在新奥尔良进行的十个月的民族志田野调查（2017-18年度），其中包括参与者在黑人拥有的fun仪馆进行的观察以及对fun仪馆负责人，保单持有人和受益人的采访。人种学分析通过考察人寿保险单在严重死亡后安排好葬礼上的作用，证明了人寿保险单是如何消费的，并且在损失时可以产生价值。