Passports powers: movement restrictions, regulations and troubles after death Anthropological considerations on crossing borders based on fieldwork-notes from an ethnography on Italian bureaucracy for returning remains

The present paper aims to lead a reflection on the process of returning remains, focusing on routes from North to South of Mediterranean Sea, from Italy to native countries. Based on ethnography, the article exposes considerations about politics addressed to dead bodies requiring transitions: they imply bureaucratic processes breaking mournings and producing sub-categories of people. Bodies are subjects requiring regulations and ruled by their need of permissions and passports to cross borders even after death. It confirms the logic of limiting freedom movement for some sub-categories of people, needing to justify constantly their presence and possibility to move. Politics addressed to remains contribute to create a dangerous Other, a synonymous of foreigner requiring regulations even after death.

Il presente contributo propone una riflessione sul rimpatrio delle salme, concentrandosi sulle rotte da Nord a Sud del Mediterraneo, dall’Italia ai paesi d’origine. Usando materiale etnografico, l’articolo offre considerazioni sulle politiche rivolte ai corpi da transitare, le quali creano processi burocratici che frammentano il tempo del lutto e producono sotto-categorie di persone. I corpi sono oggetti da normare e normati da permessi e passaporti, in morte come in vita. La morte conferma la logica della limitazione della libertà di movimento valida per sotto-categorie di persone, con il bisogno costante di giustificarne presenza e possibilità di spostamento. Le politiche funebri contribuiscono a creare un pericoloso e generico Altro, sinonimo di straniero da gestire anche dopo la morte.