Short abstract:

This is a paper about the practices that go into defying what counts as migration-related deaths in the mediterranean. More precisely, the paper situates itself in Tunisia to look at how deaths remain uncounted, or leak away, all the way through the process of becoming official statistics.

Long abstract:

This is a paper about the practices that go into defying what counts as migration-related deaths in the mediterranean and which deaths are lost, or leaked away, in the process of becoming official statistics. The article stitches together STS arguments on humanitarian forensics and quantification with stories gathered during visits to the Oases of El Hamma, Tamaghza and to the coastal town of Zarzis in Tunisia. In El Hamma, soil degradation, unplanned tourism, mining and washing of phosphate, as well as extractive agriculture, are leading people to abandon small agricultural plots and seek to migrate into Europe. Many die during these journeys. But many are not even allowed to try, after getting cancer or falling prey to denutrition due to chemical dumping and soil erosion. The same goes to Tamaghza: the effort of small farmers to recover seed quality is inspiring. But it is also inspired by their fear of the increasing number of cancer victims and other diseases that are being found in local hospitals. Zarzis is a site of ostensive migrant death. Bodies literally are washed ashore. Yet, not all bodies seem to make into the statistics after being examined by local legists. Activists denounce that some bodies are hidden away and even buried in garbage dumping sites. This paper takes a situated look at these different ways in which attempts to quantify the death of migrants seem to require complexification. The argument is part of an international collaboration, now pivoting around the Health, Care and the Body Programme at the University of Amsterdam, to rethink the roie of Vital Elements in colonial and post-colonial relations.