Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This paper examines the repatriation of deceased Moroccan migrants in Catalonia as a social, ritual, and emotional process, highlighting identity, belonging, transnational ties, and the tensions between family, tradition, and state regulations. 

Paper long abstract

This paper investigates the repatriation of deceased Moroccan migrants in Catalonia, framing it as a complex social, ritual, and emotional process. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, including life stories and participant observation, the study examines the motivations, negotiations, and tensions surrounding the decision to return the body to the country of origin. Rather than viewing repatriation solely as a bureaucratic or logistical procedure, it is understood as a ritual laden with social, religious, and affective meanings, through which identity, belonging, memory, and transnational family ties are maintained even after death.

The analysis pays particular attention to the emotional and gendered dimensions of these practices, showing how grief, nostalgia, fear of oblivion, and the desire to “return to earth” shape decision-making. It also highlights conflicts between state regulations, religious traditions, and lived experiences, as well as between individual choices and family or community expectations. These dynamics reveal broader tensions in migratory life between permanence, return, and attachment to the homeland.

Repatriation is conceptualized as a form of post-mortem mobility, challenging conventional distinctions between origin and destination, mobility and immobility. By centering death, care, and affect, the study emphasizes that migration is an embodied and relational experience extending beyond life itself. This approach contributes to anthropological debates on migration, ritual, and belonging, demonstrating that funerary practices offer a privileged lens for understanding the social, emotional, and transnational dimensions of contemporary mobility.