International Conference #3 : Death “Matters”: The (Im)material and the Sensory in Death in Migration
Venue: The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Dates: January 7-9, 2024
Language: English
This conference will be held in person and participants will be expected to travel to the venue at their own cost, obtaining their visa as applicable.
A few travel bursaries will be considered on a case by case basis for outstanding proposals.
Full description of the Thanatic Ethics Project: https://www.thanaticethics.com
Project Co-convenors:
Dr Bidisha Banerjee, International Research Centre for Cultural Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong
Dr Thomas Lacroix, Sciences Po-CERI / Maison Française d’Oxford
Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak, EMMA, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, France
We are delighted to announce that the conference will open with an immersive sound installation titled Spaces of Exception by the award winning, NYC based sound artist Freya Powell. Highly relevant to the conference themes, the installation uses the voice as a medium to speak to the ambiguous loss experienced as a result of ‘Prevention Through Deterrence’, a US immigration policy along the US-Mexico border.
“Thanatic Ethics: The Circulation of Bodies in Migratory Spaces” explores themes related to death in migration, such as the longing to be buried at ‘home’ for diasporic people, body repatriation in the context of migration, or the difficult identification of bodily remains in the context of the current migrant crisis. The conference will also consider the individual and collective stakes of migrant death under surveillance, as well as the politics of ‘grievability’, of spectrality and (un)accountability.
This conference builds on work done during the first two conferences in Oxford and Kolkata in 2022, the focus of which was, respectively, “Bodies on the Edge: Life and Death in Migration” and “Response, Repair, Transformation”. We will also follow up on the Workshops, particularly Workshop #4 entitled “In Search of Accountability” while also developing new insights.