Gone but Not Forgotten? Retrieving the Migrant in Late Antiquity

Abstract

Abstract In recent decades, migration has come into increasing scholarly focus as both a historical and a transhistorical phenomenon, with particular periods emerging as foci for migration activity. The latter go hand in hand with high incidences of migrant deaths, responses to which remain swathed in the politics of remembrance and recovery. Both the grave vulnerabilities of migrants and the efforts surrounding their recollection find their echoes not only in the contemporary United States but in earlier historical eras and other regions as well. This article examines one such period: that of the fifth and sixth centuries CE, when wars, natural disasters, and shifts in imperial allegiances both shaped another “age of exile” and precipitated religious responses thereto. By investigating Eastern Christian narratives around the care for the bodies and souls of migrants, this article considers the challenges that afflict efforts to remember the migrant in both late ancient and contemporary practice.