Welcome to the Migrant Corpse Archive
Explore the postmortem journey of the African diasporic body and the barriers to its "right to rest" through diverse media forms. This archive uncovers critical insights into national belonging and the evolving narrative of the migrant corpse.
Our Guiding Question:
How do different media forms negotiate the "right to rest" for the African diasporic body, and what do these transformations reveal about the limits of national belonging? This project delves into the core concept of the migrant corpse, examining its evolution across various media.
Black skin, white masks
Drawing from the theoretical text Black skin, white masks, this section explores the colonial gaze that objectifies and overdetermines the Black body. I examine how Frantz Fanon’s concept of a "racial epidermal schema" persists postmortem, where the migrant corpse becomes a fixed object stripped of voice and ontological subjectivity.
Adrift
This photojournalistic investigation examines the bodies and items found in a Mauritanian pirogue floating off the coast of Tobago. It grounds the archive in forensic reality, exploring the "forever migrant" status of unidentified remains held in morgues, while also highlighting the grueling search for corporeal proof and familial closure.
La Noire de...
Inspired by a 1958 fait divers, Ousmane Sembène’s short story (and film) "La Noire de..." follows Diouana, a Senegalese woman working in France who took her own life. This narrative reveals the migrant corpse as a site of radical agency and resistance against exploitation, but also publicizes and reiterates a death that was initially executed in private.
Atlantics
In the supernatural film Atlantics, the migrant corpse is defined by its haunting absence. Lost to the ocean, the spirits of the drowned return to claim their wages. This exhibit explores the graveyard of the Atlantic and the spectral return of those denied a physical resting place.
BBC News - Repatriation
This investigative news article highlights the modern bureaucratic and financial barriers to repatriation in the UK. The migrant corpse is revealed as a continued site of contestation, caught between generational divides and the steep price of returning home to find rest.
A Key Reflection:
The migrant corpse is one in constant transit. These representations and transmediations reveal that, whether the diasporic individual takes their own life, or their life is taken from them, their status as a migrant remains at the forefront of negotiations regarding national belonging, even after death.
Elayne McGrail
PhD student, University of Pittsburgh
elm380@pitt.edu