Paper short abstract:

How does care for (after)lives take shape in a context of prolonged geographical separation? This paper explores funerary practices among precarious refugees in Jordan and The Netherlands, when economic and legal barriers make physical proximity to navigate bureaucracy and mourning impossible.

Paper long abstract:

How are funerary rites (un)done, when prolonged geographical separation impedes togetherness, and what creative ways do persons residing in legal precarity in Jordan and The Netherlands find to care for the (after)lives of their loved ones?

People’s experiences of forced migration often coincide with border violence, prolonged geographical separation and the necessity of making do with restricted rights, also in afterlives. The same legal and economic barriers that hinder onward movement also impede physical presence to mourn together, whereas legislation and institutionalized procedures to govern death are embedded in colonial legacies and largely driven by sedentary logics.

This paper draws on research in process on experiences of loss at a distance and mediated practices around navigating bureaucratic procedures and affective rituals. The central role of bureaucracy and the social significance of burial rituals for holding on to and continuing life are widely recognised. Contemporary studies also suggest increased importance of mediated networks for individuals and communities dealing with bereavement and the central roles that diasporic communities play in migrants’ experiences of loss.

Here, I further explore the roles of digital affordances for sustaining relational and biographical dynamics of (after)lives in a context of everyday necropolitcs (Mbembe, 2003). Participatory media ethnography on this topic has much potential for falling into the traps of ‘anthropological consumption’ (Walia, 2022, p. 2). Rather, I draw on a relational ethics of care (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) to foster dignified engagement and life-affirming research on dealings with loss (Tuck, 2009).