The Border As a Space of Death: Trajectories of Bodies Found in Spain

European external borders have progressively been locked down since the 1980s. The Schengen agreements have removed controls at EU internal borders and required the strengthening of external frontiers. Various actions plans have been implemented under the aegis of the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the EU (Frontex), created in 2004. As controls tighten further and further, migrants take more and more risks to cross the borders and are ready to pay an ever-increasing price for their migration. Migrants’ dead bodies constitute strong evidence undermining EU claims about the life-saving power of its technology. Indeed, the border can be conceived as a “space of death”.  Taking an ethnographic approach, I examine in this paper the management of bodies found in Spain (Andalusia, Melilla, Canary Islands). My aim here is to apprehend how migrants’ dead bodies are treated. More specifically I look at the different institutions and agents that are engaged -officially or unofficially- in trying to identify the corpses, return them to their families or pay them tribute. Eventually I tackle the contradiction between EU discourses on the “right to identity” and what happens in practice when a body without name is found.