Digital materialities in the diasporic mourning of migrant death

Abstract

This article examines memorialization among the family and friends of those who have died at the world’s deadliest border in the Mediterranean Sea. Digital media platforms are central spaces for new, innovative forms of coping with ambiguous loss or the inability to mourn over a dead body. The analysis focuses on the role of digital media technologies and the relationship between digital and material elements in memorialization. I examine the creation and circulation of digital objects of memorialization: visual assemblages in which the material and digital intertwine. The analysis demonstrates that digital media practices are not separate from the material world, nor do they make mourning and memorializing less human or less authentic. On the contrary, in transnational and mobile circumstances, digital technologies facilitate human, ethical engagement with complicated grief. Memorializing is crucial for both the private and the public lives of diasporic communities. In Europe, public recognition of the memorialization of refugee deaths would increase understanding of the human consequences of the border, allowing the dead to be seen as individuals with human relationships rather than as numbers.

Transnational death and technological haunting

“…12). Regarding the Mediterranean route, "most of the bodies disappear into the sea or are buried in anonymous graves at cemeteries on either side of the European Union (EU) border" (Horsti, 2019;p. 672).…”

“…Researchers, humanitarian organizations have critiqued the EU's "inability to respond ethically to migrant death as a social loss worthy of common grief " (Horsti, 2019;p. 672).…”

“…For example, Horsti (2019) writes about how digital photographs of burials in Greece taken by relatives (for example, people already living in Europe or who survived the crossing) help those back in the country of origin to grieve. These "online memorials are accessible across borders and in some ways stand in for the victims' unknown or inaccessible graves" (Horsti, 2019;p. 672).…”

“…672). The photographs of the rituals "documented the act of mourning for those who were not present at the time" (Horsti, 2019;p. 672).…”