Death and dying under military occupation: asserting sovereignty in Palestine, Georgia and Western Sahara

This project investigates death and dying in contexts affected by military occupations where sovereignty is contested. Since control over people is a key aspect of sovereignty, questions of the legitimate use of violence, the proper handling of dead bodies, and links between corpses and national soil become important. This includes the enactment of supremacy and oppression, subversion and resistance.

Using an anthropological perspective this research will analyse how different actors use control over death and dying to assert and contest sovereignty in three on-going situations of occupation: the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara, and the Russian occupation of the Georgian territory of South Ossetia.

Previous research has showed that dead bodies can be powerful symbols in times of political instability. In these situations, dead bodies become sites of meaning-making and questions about proper burial, accountability, memorials etc. become important in novel ways. Moreover, when a person dies, the handling of the body becomes an arena for the performance of sovereignty – by states, but potentially various sub-, supra-, or trans-national actors as well.

Consequently, death and dying are productive sites for an exploration of the contested nature of sovereignty under military occupation.