Like a part of a puzzle which is missing': The impact on families of a relative missing in migrat... more Like a part of a puzzle which is missing': The impact on families of a relative missing in migration across the Mediterranean Report on the situation of families September 2016 Mediterranean Missing Understanding the Needs of Families and the Obligations of States www.mediterraneanmissing.eu The concrete issues to be understood and consented to by all subjects include confidentiality and the anonymous transmission of statements they gave. It also had to be 7 Bell, Pam (2001) The ethics of conducting psychiatric research in war-torn contexts. In Smyth, Marie and Robinson, Gillian (eds.), Researching violently divided societies: Ethical and methodological issues. London: Pluto Press: 185.
Mi accingo a trattare alcuni risultati collaterali delle ricerche che svolgo per anni sul tema de... more Mi accingo a trattare alcuni risultati collaterali delle ricerche che svolgo per anni sul tema dei migranti deceduti e dispersi lungo i confini meridionali dell’Unione Europea. Dapprima – dal novembre 2011- per il progetto Human Costs of Border Control. e successivamente -settembre 2015- per il progetto Mediterranean Missing. Tra le maglie delle ricerche sono emersi complessi meccanismi culturali messi in opera dalle comunità locali del sud Italia, per affrontare l’ingresso dei migranti deceduti in mare all’interno del luogo sacro per la collettività, i cimiteri. Se attraverso l’analisi delle procedure burocratiche attuate dalla autorità italiane emerge una severa riduzione nello status del corpo come indice di persona, lo studio delle pratiche funerarie attuate dalle comunità locali dimostra un profondo lavoro di appropriazione del lutto e di sussunzione del deceduto migrante all’interno della propria comunità dei deceduti, quali battesimi post mortem, sepolture nelle cappelle di f...
Cercher\uf2 di introdurre il lettore nelle complesse modalit\ue0 di gestione dei corpi e della lo... more Cercher\uf2 di introdurre il lettore nelle complesse modalit\ue0 di gestione dei corpi e della loro identificazione. Il ritrovamento di un cadavere apre una serie di procedure ufficiali che coinvolgono le autorit\ue0 statali e producono una considerevole mole di documentazione di vario contenuto. Accanto alle procedure ufficiale previste dalla normativa Italiana si innescano per\uf2 altre pratiche per gestire i cadaveri delle vittime delle frontiere. Vi sono infatti procedure standard previste dalla legge e altre che sono applicate nella realt\ue0. Esiste pertanto una separazione tra procedure ufficiali e quelle ufficiose. Tali osservazioni sono state fatte attraverso lo studio della svariata produzione documentale delle autorit\ue0 italiane archiviata negli uffici pubblici
While the term missing refers to various instances and practices, we focus on the bodies of decea... more While the term missing refers to various instances and practices, we focus on the bodies of deceased migrants that remain unidentified, and on the inability of families to mourn someone when there is no body to grieve for. We deploy some ethnographic fragments of how Italian communities sometimes mourn those who are buried without a name and we describe the many problems of mourning someone whose fate is unknown through a discussion of the notion of 'ambiguous loss'. Our contribution articulates some of the politics around deaths in migration by considering how missing migrants and their bodies are mourned in multiplicity.
On 12th of May 2015 the VU University of Amsterdam published the Deaths at the Borders Database, ... more On 12th of May 2015 the VU University of Amsterdam published the Deaths at the Borders Database, an evidence-base of information retrieved from the death records of migrants who died attempting to cross the EU\u2019s southern borders to Greece, Italy, Malta, Gibraltar and Spain, and whose bodies were found and processed by the authorities of these countries, between 1990 and 2013.1 From this research it emerged that two thirds of deceased migrants were classified as unidentified and that the identification rate varied greatly depending on both place and time factors. In Italy, more specifically, data collection involved searching through documents issued within the death management system of Italian coastal towns, which have been receiving migrants by sea for the last 25 years, in Apulia, Sardinia, Sicily and Calabria. The retrieval of an unidentified body begins a series of procedures involving various local authorities, and produces a considerable about of paperwork. In Italy, alongside the official procedures that must be implemented throughout the nation, there are many procedures imposed at the regional, provincial and local levels. This creates differences from place to place, leaving identification of deceased migrants to chance, dependent on the individual abilities and competences of the local authorities in the exact place where their body is found or brought from the sea. This article offers a broad picture of the Italian death management system in this regard, paying close attention to the effects and consequences of a non-standardized identification process, which has proven to be ineffective in many places where migrants bodies are found, and thereby incapable of guaranteeing the dignity of the deceased and their families. Compensations for this ineffective system are made by members of the local communities, by guardians of cemeteries, and by mayors, who do what they can to offer religious rites and burial ceremonies that (attempt, at least) to restore the memories of these too-easily forgotten dead
The Mediterranean Missing research project has sought to understand both the impact on families o... more The Mediterranean Missing research project has sought to understand both the impact on families of having a relative missing in migration, and the law, policy and practice around the identification of bodies of dead migrants in Italy and Greece. Interviews with families of missing migrants from five countries confirmed the huge impact of not knowing the fate of loved ones, with families tortured by ambiguity and suffering a range of emotional and psychological consequences. In Lesbos, Greece, and Sicily, Italy, interviews with authorities, civil society and others confirm the presence of a policy vacuum around the issue of the missing, despite the duties on states imposed by human rights law. Investigation of deaths is inadequate, with effective post-mortem data collection and management challenged by the huge numbers of migrants , in some cases sufficiently to compromise future identification. In both Greece and Italy, response is characterised by a policy vacuum, with a large numb...
Like a part of a puzzle which is missing': The impact on families of a relative missing in migrat... more Like a part of a puzzle which is missing': The impact on families of a relative missing in migration across the Mediterranean Report on the situation of families September 2016 Mediterranean Missing Understanding the Needs of Families and the Obligations of States www.mediterraneanmissing.eu The concrete issues to be understood and consented to by all subjects include confidentiality and the anonymous transmission of statements they gave. It also had to be 7 Bell, Pam (2001) The ethics of conducting psychiatric research in war-torn contexts. In Smyth, Marie and Robinson, Gillian (eds.), Researching violently divided societies: Ethical and methodological issues. London: Pluto Press: 185.
Create an independent humanitarian commission to oversee and coordinate a national response to ... more Create an independent humanitarian commission to oversee and coordinate a national response to the crisis of missing migrants in Greece; Improve existing practices around data collection and management both from bodies and witnesses, and emphasise the importance of ante-mortem data; Acknowledge state obligations under International Human Rights Law and uphold legal duties; Respect families’ needs, and engage families so that they are at the centre of the issue; Seek additional resources to address the problem, including from the EU; Begin to create a global architecture to address the phenomenon of missing migrants, including a set of principles that can serve as the basis for protocols around transnational data sharing. Mediterranean Missing
Border deaths are a result of dynamics involving diverse actors, and can be interpreted and repre... more Border deaths are a result of dynamics involving diverse actors, and can be interpreted and represented in various ways. Critical voices from civil society (including academia) hold states responsible for making safe journeys impossible for large parts of the world population. Meanwhile, policy-makers argue that border deaths demonstrate the need for restrictive border policies. Statistics are widely (mis)used to support different readings of border deaths. However, the way data is collected, analysed, and disseminated remains largely unquestioned. Similarly, little is known about how bodies are treated, and about the different ways in which the dead - also including the missing and the unidentified - are mourned by familiars and strangers. New concepts and perspectives contribute to highlighting the political nature of border deaths and finding ways to move forward. The chapters of this collection, co-authored by researchers and practitioners, provide the first interdisciplinary ov...
For decades, migrants have continued to die or go missing in the Mediterranean, while the Europea... more For decades, migrants have continued to die or go missing in the Mediterranean, while the European Union and Italy continue to exhibit a policy vacuum around the issue of the missing, despite the duties on states imposed by human rights law. The investigation of deaths is inadequate, the Italian judicial authorities demonstrate disinterest to proceed with investigations in the identification of deceased migrants, and the inefficient post-mortem data collection seriously compromise every effort to restore names and dignity to the dead. This attitude seems to confirm the theory of “necropolitics,” which views the state as a racist and excluding sovereign entity. But ethnographic analysis of the work of some of the involved actors reveals recognition of the deceased and missing migrants based on a sense of familiarity and closeness. Here, the experience of the Mediterranean Missing Project is discussed, with an emphasis on future work prospects for both academia and practitioners.
Irregular migrants and asylum seekers have died and continue to die attempting to cross the exter... more Irregular migrants and asylum seekers have died and continue to die attempting to cross the external borders of the EU without authorisation, seeking to enter the territories of its Member States. Yet, remarkably little is known about these 'border deaths'. In 2015, the Human Costs of Border Control project published the Deaths at the Borders Database for the Southern EU, an open-source 'evidence base' of individualised information about people who have died border deaths between 1990 and 2013, sourced from the death management systems of Spain, Gibraltar, Italy, Malta and Greece. It is the first database on border deaths in the EU to be based on official sources as opposed to the news media. The project involved searching 563 state-run death registry archives and deductively selecting the death certificates of persons who died border deaths. This paper describes, in detail, the making of the Deaths at the Borders Database: from the systematic, multisited, quantitative data collection and qualitative case studies, to the construction and final results of the Database itself.
This chapter attends to the often-neglected bodies of migrants who do not make it to their destin... more This chapter attends to the often-neglected bodies of migrants who do not make it to their destination alive. It addresses initiatives where the bodies are attended to at the population level, i.e. practices of counting, as well as at the individual level, i.e. the burial, registration and potential forensic identification of individual deceased bodies. We introduce the notion ‘matters of care’ to analyse modes of knowing. We argue that caring for these bodies with dignity and respect – through counting, listing and mapping the dead as well as through attempts at identifying the individual bodies – produces proximity with the dead and accountability for deadly border management regimes.
Like a part of a puzzle which is missing': The impact on families of a relative missing in migrat... more Like a part of a puzzle which is missing': The impact on families of a relative missing in migration across the Mediterranean Report on the situation of families September 2016 Mediterranean Missing Understanding the Needs of Families and the Obligations of States www.mediterraneanmissing.eu The concrete issues to be understood and consented to by all subjects include confidentiality and the anonymous transmission of statements they gave. It also had to be 7 Bell, Pam (2001) The ethics of conducting psychiatric research in war-torn contexts. In Smyth, Marie and Robinson, Gillian (eds.), Researching violently divided societies: Ethical and methodological issues. London: Pluto Press: 185.
Mi accingo a trattare alcuni risultati collaterali delle ricerche che svolgo per anni sul tema de... more Mi accingo a trattare alcuni risultati collaterali delle ricerche che svolgo per anni sul tema dei migranti deceduti e dispersi lungo i confini meridionali dell’Unione Europea. Dapprima – dal novembre 2011- per il progetto Human Costs of Border Control. e successivamente -settembre 2015- per il progetto Mediterranean Missing. Tra le maglie delle ricerche sono emersi complessi meccanismi culturali messi in opera dalle comunità locali del sud Italia, per affrontare l’ingresso dei migranti deceduti in mare all’interno del luogo sacro per la collettività, i cimiteri. Se attraverso l’analisi delle procedure burocratiche attuate dalla autorità italiane emerge una severa riduzione nello status del corpo come indice di persona, lo studio delle pratiche funerarie attuate dalle comunità locali dimostra un profondo lavoro di appropriazione del lutto e di sussunzione del deceduto migrante all’interno della propria comunità dei deceduti, quali battesimi post mortem, sepolture nelle cappelle di f...
Cercher\uf2 di introdurre il lettore nelle complesse modalit\ue0 di gestione dei corpi e della lo... more Cercher\uf2 di introdurre il lettore nelle complesse modalit\ue0 di gestione dei corpi e della loro identificazione. Il ritrovamento di un cadavere apre una serie di procedure ufficiali che coinvolgono le autorit\ue0 statali e producono una considerevole mole di documentazione di vario contenuto. Accanto alle procedure ufficiale previste dalla normativa Italiana si innescano per\uf2 altre pratiche per gestire i cadaveri delle vittime delle frontiere. Vi sono infatti procedure standard previste dalla legge e altre che sono applicate nella realt\ue0. Esiste pertanto una separazione tra procedure ufficiali e quelle ufficiose. Tali osservazioni sono state fatte attraverso lo studio della svariata produzione documentale delle autorit\ue0 italiane archiviata negli uffici pubblici
While the term missing refers to various instances and practices, we focus on the bodies of decea... more While the term missing refers to various instances and practices, we focus on the bodies of deceased migrants that remain unidentified, and on the inability of families to mourn someone when there is no body to grieve for. We deploy some ethnographic fragments of how Italian communities sometimes mourn those who are buried without a name and we describe the many problems of mourning someone whose fate is unknown through a discussion of the notion of 'ambiguous loss'. Our contribution articulates some of the politics around deaths in migration by considering how missing migrants and their bodies are mourned in multiplicity.
On 12th of May 2015 the VU University of Amsterdam published the Deaths at the Borders Database, ... more On 12th of May 2015 the VU University of Amsterdam published the Deaths at the Borders Database, an evidence-base of information retrieved from the death records of migrants who died attempting to cross the EU\u2019s southern borders to Greece, Italy, Malta, Gibraltar and Spain, and whose bodies were found and processed by the authorities of these countries, between 1990 and 2013.1 From this research it emerged that two thirds of deceased migrants were classified as unidentified and that the identification rate varied greatly depending on both place and time factors. In Italy, more specifically, data collection involved searching through documents issued within the death management system of Italian coastal towns, which have been receiving migrants by sea for the last 25 years, in Apulia, Sardinia, Sicily and Calabria. The retrieval of an unidentified body begins a series of procedures involving various local authorities, and produces a considerable about of paperwork. In Italy, alongside the official procedures that must be implemented throughout the nation, there are many procedures imposed at the regional, provincial and local levels. This creates differences from place to place, leaving identification of deceased migrants to chance, dependent on the individual abilities and competences of the local authorities in the exact place where their body is found or brought from the sea. This article offers a broad picture of the Italian death management system in this regard, paying close attention to the effects and consequences of a non-standardized identification process, which has proven to be ineffective in many places where migrants bodies are found, and thereby incapable of guaranteeing the dignity of the deceased and their families. Compensations for this ineffective system are made by members of the local communities, by guardians of cemeteries, and by mayors, who do what they can to offer religious rites and burial ceremonies that (attempt, at least) to restore the memories of these too-easily forgotten dead
The Mediterranean Missing research project has sought to understand both the impact on families o... more The Mediterranean Missing research project has sought to understand both the impact on families of having a relative missing in migration, and the law, policy and practice around the identification of bodies of dead migrants in Italy and Greece. Interviews with families of missing migrants from five countries confirmed the huge impact of not knowing the fate of loved ones, with families tortured by ambiguity and suffering a range of emotional and psychological consequences. In Lesbos, Greece, and Sicily, Italy, interviews with authorities, civil society and others confirm the presence of a policy vacuum around the issue of the missing, despite the duties on states imposed by human rights law. Investigation of deaths is inadequate, with effective post-mortem data collection and management challenged by the huge numbers of migrants , in some cases sufficiently to compromise future identification. In both Greece and Italy, response is characterised by a policy vacuum, with a large numb...
Like a part of a puzzle which is missing': The impact on families of a relative missing in migrat... more Like a part of a puzzle which is missing': The impact on families of a relative missing in migration across the Mediterranean Report on the situation of families September 2016 Mediterranean Missing Understanding the Needs of Families and the Obligations of States www.mediterraneanmissing.eu The concrete issues to be understood and consented to by all subjects include confidentiality and the anonymous transmission of statements they gave. It also had to be 7 Bell, Pam (2001) The ethics of conducting psychiatric research in war-torn contexts. In Smyth, Marie and Robinson, Gillian (eds.), Researching violently divided societies: Ethical and methodological issues. London: Pluto Press: 185.
Create an independent humanitarian commission to oversee and coordinate a national response to ... more Create an independent humanitarian commission to oversee and coordinate a national response to the crisis of missing migrants in Greece; Improve existing practices around data collection and management both from bodies and witnesses, and emphasise the importance of ante-mortem data; Acknowledge state obligations under International Human Rights Law and uphold legal duties; Respect families’ needs, and engage families so that they are at the centre of the issue; Seek additional resources to address the problem, including from the EU; Begin to create a global architecture to address the phenomenon of missing migrants, including a set of principles that can serve as the basis for protocols around transnational data sharing. Mediterranean Missing
Border deaths are a result of dynamics involving diverse actors, and can be interpreted and repre... more Border deaths are a result of dynamics involving diverse actors, and can be interpreted and represented in various ways. Critical voices from civil society (including academia) hold states responsible for making safe journeys impossible for large parts of the world population. Meanwhile, policy-makers argue that border deaths demonstrate the need for restrictive border policies. Statistics are widely (mis)used to support different readings of border deaths. However, the way data is collected, analysed, and disseminated remains largely unquestioned. Similarly, little is known about how bodies are treated, and about the different ways in which the dead - also including the missing and the unidentified - are mourned by familiars and strangers. New concepts and perspectives contribute to highlighting the political nature of border deaths and finding ways to move forward. The chapters of this collection, co-authored by researchers and practitioners, provide the first interdisciplinary ov...
For decades, migrants have continued to die or go missing in the Mediterranean, while the Europea... more For decades, migrants have continued to die or go missing in the Mediterranean, while the European Union and Italy continue to exhibit a policy vacuum around the issue of the missing, despite the duties on states imposed by human rights law. The investigation of deaths is inadequate, the Italian judicial authorities demonstrate disinterest to proceed with investigations in the identification of deceased migrants, and the inefficient post-mortem data collection seriously compromise every effort to restore names and dignity to the dead. This attitude seems to confirm the theory of “necropolitics,” which views the state as a racist and excluding sovereign entity. But ethnographic analysis of the work of some of the involved actors reveals recognition of the deceased and missing migrants based on a sense of familiarity and closeness. Here, the experience of the Mediterranean Missing Project is discussed, with an emphasis on future work prospects for both academia and practitioners.
Irregular migrants and asylum seekers have died and continue to die attempting to cross the exter... more Irregular migrants and asylum seekers have died and continue to die attempting to cross the external borders of the EU without authorisation, seeking to enter the territories of its Member States. Yet, remarkably little is known about these 'border deaths'. In 2015, the Human Costs of Border Control project published the Deaths at the Borders Database for the Southern EU, an open-source 'evidence base' of individualised information about people who have died border deaths between 1990 and 2013, sourced from the death management systems of Spain, Gibraltar, Italy, Malta and Greece. It is the first database on border deaths in the EU to be based on official sources as opposed to the news media. The project involved searching 563 state-run death registry archives and deductively selecting the death certificates of persons who died border deaths. This paper describes, in detail, the making of the Deaths at the Borders Database: from the systematic, multisited, quantitative data collection and qualitative case studies, to the construction and final results of the Database itself.
This chapter attends to the often-neglected bodies of migrants who do not make it to their destin... more This chapter attends to the often-neglected bodies of migrants who do not make it to their destination alive. It addresses initiatives where the bodies are attended to at the population level, i.e. practices of counting, as well as at the individual level, i.e. the burial, registration and potential forensic identification of individual deceased bodies. We introduce the notion ‘matters of care’ to analyse modes of knowing. We argue that caring for these bodies with dignity and respect – through counting, listing and mapping the dead as well as through attempts at identifying the individual bodies – produces proximity with the dead and accountability for deadly border management regimes.
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Papers by Giorgia Mirto