Burial and Belonging

This article explores the role that funerary practices and burial decisions play in the construction of national and political identities amongst Muslim immigrants in Germany. Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with Islamic undertakers, migrant families, and religious leaders in Berlin it argues that the act of burial serves as a powerful means to assert belonging in migratory settings. While local burial laws impact the feasibility of Islamic funerary rites, this article suggests that family ties, ideas about the soil, and feelings of social exclusion play a larger role in shaping burial outcomes than the laws of the dead. By conferring a sense of fixity or permanence to identities that are more fluid or ambivalent in life, determining where a dead body belongs helps demarcate social and communal boundaries.