Identifying dead migrants: forensic care work and relational citizenship

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Mediterranean Sea has become an iconic site in the so-called migration crisis. Thousands of dead bodies have washed up on the southern beaches of Europe. We draw on ethnographic material collected at sites in Italy where the bodies of drowned migrants have been cared for by professionals and volunteers. We argue that while caring for the dead allows them to be identified as persons, it also produces relationships that go beyond formal citizenship. We introduce the notion of forensic care work to analyse the practice of identification and show how it produces a relational citizenship. We follow the movement of bodies from where they are found to examination and burial. We show that this process involves constant tinkering and experimenting with in this specific forensic practice and argue that caring for the dead requires caring for the forensic infrastructure.