Separated in death: Border deaths and agency of the dead on the Balkan migratory trail

Abstract

Over the last decade, border deaths have become a very present part of the migration landscape along the so-called Balkan route. Focusing on these deaths, this article shows how they involve striking separation of identity (name, biography) and body. Moreover, we argue that this separation is both a product of the migration politics and border regime and a product of the agency of the dead. On one side, due to the physical distance, lack of information, and in some cases disappearances, relatives struggle to mourn the deceased without being in touch with the body. On the other side, due to the literal lack of name, when the deceased are unidentified, locals in places of death struggle with how to take care of and pay tribute to the deceased without knowing the name or the social being of the deceased. Based on our ethnographic research of border deaths along the so-called Balkan route from 2020 onwards, we analyze  how the agency of the dead emerges from relatives, mourning while searching for the body, and locals paying tribute while searching for the name. This agency manifests through diverse acts—from identification and repatriation efforts or appeals to international bodies, to the development of burial protocols and commemorative practices. In this context, the border regime, through its racialised logic of division and hierarchization, produces and maintains this split, intensifying the social disappearance of migrants. Yet paradoxically, this enforced separation also generates forms of resistance and increasing political consciousness among both relatives of the deceased and local witnesses to border deaths.