The Transnational Afterlives of European Muslims

Abstract

Abstract How do European Muslims navigate death and burial in countries where they face systematic barriers to political inclusion? The authors of this article investigate the complex negotiations surrounding end-of-life decisions for Muslim communities in France and Germany. Drawing on multisited ethnographic research among Algerian and Turkish diasporas in Marseilles and Berlin, they illustrate how burial decisions reflect divergent ideas about citizenship, belonging, and identity. While some Muslims are interred in local cemeteries, many more are repatriated out of Europe to be laid in ancestral soils in countries of origin. Through interviews with Muslim death-care workers and community members the authors analyze the significance and symbolic value that such posthumous journeys carry in postmigratory settings. They argue that the Muslim corpse embodies a range of overlapping desires, experiences, and expectations connected to histories of migration, settlement, and return, as well as attitudes toward death and beliefs about the afterlife. Consequently, the corpse offers a compelling window into the transnational afterlives of migration and empire.