Death, mourning, and burial in migratory contexts

While migration is associated with mobility and flux, death inevitably raises questions of fixity and finality. This Copenhagen Migration Symposium explores the interplay between mortality and mobility.

How do migrants care for the dying and the dead when on the move? What are the affective and political afterlives of dead bodies lost at sea? How is belonging and recognition negotiated through the choice of burial site? The symposium brings together scholars who work in different regions of the world for a comparative discussion of end-of-life practices in migratory settings.

Programme

13:15 - 13:20 Welcome
13:20 - 13:50 Finn Stepputat, Emeritus Researcher, Danish Institute for International Studies
Governing death out of place.
13:50 - 14:20 Ida Hartmann, postdoctoral researcher, Faculty of Theology.
Grounding Islam: Muslim Burials and Deep Pluralism in Denmark.
14:20 - 14:35 Break
14:35 - 15:05 Anja Simonson, associate professor, Department of Anthropology
When crises migrate: Volunteers’ experiences of witnessing death and its social
aftermath at the Mediterranean.
15:05 - 15:35 Vera Skvirskaja, associate professor, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional
Studies.
'The 'Dead' Links': The regeneration of diasporic life and (Bukharan) Jewish
Muslim interfaces in post-Soviet Central Asia.
15:35 - 16:00 Concluding discussion
16:00 - 17:00 Refreshments

The symposium is open to all. Please register before 10 May by sending an email to Ida Hartmann.