On border beings

On border beings

Carolina Kobelinsky, Researcher, Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, Paris Nanterre-CNRS.

Abstract: Death is a constant feature in lives at the borders for those trying to reach Europe without the necessary authorizations from nation-states: it is a possible eventuality, a material reality, and a ghostly presence. At the border between the enclave of Melilla and the Moroccan province of Nador, there are many stories told about near death experiences while attempting to cross both land and maritime borders, and about abandoned dead bodies. Other common narratives focus on the living dead and their efforts to resist death, on the missing presumed dead, on unidentified bodies, and on the living individuals who are haunted by the dead or by the disappeared. Although disruptive, border deaths are also normalized in ordinary life at the border, producing new modes of action and redefining traditional categories. After border deaths, new beings —and new forms of being— emerge and engage in collective life. Many of these entities, which I refer to as “border beings”, are not necessarily physically embodied or properly tangible, but they account for particular forms of existence and provide a condensed version of lived experience. Drawing on ethnographic material collected among male border-crossers from West African countries, I will explore how different border beings all co-exist at the border. I am concerned, more broadly, with the effects of the contemporary border regime on everyday life.

Short bio: Carolina Kobelinsky (she/her) is CNRS Research fellow in anthropology at the Laboratory of Ethnology and Comparative Sociology, University of Paris Nanterre. Her research centres around borders and migration. Her current research deals with the material and symbolic treatment of dead border-crossers in Southern Europe. Her latest publications are a co-edited volume (with L. Rachédi) entitled Traces et mobilités posthumes. Rêver les futurs des défunts en contextes migratoires (Pétra, 2023), and a collective essay (with. M. Lagumier, C. Jungen, S. Houdart, A. Herrou, A. Guillou & S. Carton de Grammont), Parier sur l’espérance. Exercice d’anticipation pour s’accrocher à ce qui vient (Cambourakis, 2023).