Birth, Burials and the Politics of Migration

Life-changing events, births and burials happen to migrants on the road to Europe. Some migrants die trying to enter, whereas others are born migrants.

How do migrants- and their researchers - account for such experiences?

Sine Plambech, DIIS researcher at theMIGMA – Transnationalism from above and belowproject, which explores European attempts to return Nigerian migrants, is doing fieldwork among arriving migrants in Catania, Sicily,one of the main ports receiving migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

The number of undocumented women arriving to Europe pregnant is increasing, they deliver on board Search & Rescue boats or become pregnant shortly upon arrival to Europe. At the same time, drowned migrants are buried in anonymous graves in Sicilian graveyards.

In this interview, Sine Plambech argues that in order to understand the complexity of return migration and the broader implications of migration politics, we have to study such arrivals and the life changes migrants experience upon arrival. ”We need to address and understand the life and death events the migrants both have experienced on their journey, and also the trauma of migration", says Plambech.