Solidarity fund for researchers at risk (The Université libre de Bruxelles)

From Félicien de Heusch

The Université libre de Bruxelles has created a Solidarity Fund in order to provide support for researchers who no longer have the freedom to pursue their research in their home country, where they are threatened due to the content of their scientific work or to the opinions they have freely expressed.

The Solidarity fund provides postdoctoral fellowships enabling threatened academics to continue their work at ULB in a climate of academic freedom.

The solidarity fellowship consists in a one-year (12 months) postdoctoral position, amounting to 42,000 euros gross (approximately 29,000 euros net), plus a discretionary relocation allowance of 2,500 euros net (payable to researchers resident in another country, after their move to Belgium).

The recipients will carry out research in a ULB research centre, supervised by a member of the University’s academic staff. They may, if they so wish, take part in teaching activities or any other scientific activities organised on campus.

For application and detailed information, please refer to The Université libre de Bruxelles website.

Les ritualités funéraires des familles transnationales musulmanes à l’épreuve de la pandémie deCovid

From Yumna Masarwa

Centre Max Weber has organized a conference on 6 April 2023 related to Thanatic Ethics.

For more details, please refer to the conference website (link).

Nos collègues du Centre Max Weber Emmanuelle Santelli et Valérie Cuzol (équipe 2, Dynamiques sociales et politiques de la vie privée) organisent une journée d’étude thématique.

Intitulé : Les ritualités funéraires des familles transnationales musulmanes à l’épreuve de la pandémie de Covid 19. Défis et réalités

Il y a près de trois ans, la planète entière se démenait dans la tourmente d’une pandémie d’une ampleur inédite pour empêcher la propagation du coronavirus et enterrer ses morts. Malgré les effets dévastateurs, tous les enseignements de ce moment de basculement ne semblent pas avoir été retenus. De nombreuses analyses ont éclipsé les situations particulières des populations les moins visibles et comporte des angles morts alors que l’épidémie de la Covid-19 a mis en lumière des enjeux d’égalité sociale et territoriale importants, en particulier dans les grands centres urbains du fait de la concentration d’institutions hospitalières et de la surmortalité dans les familles issues de l’immigration.

Ouverte à tout public, la journée d’étude entend faire dialoguer et réfléchir ensemble des chercheur.es et des acteurs et actrices non académiques. Il s’agit d’interroger l’impact de ce temps d’exception sur les ritualités funéraires des familles transnationales de confession musulmane, les réappropriations symboliques des rapatriements post-mortem par les États d’origine et la réactualisation les enjeux sociopolitiques de l’inhumation locale en contexte d’islam minoritaire.

Death and Migration: Perspectives from the Post-Soviet Space

From Thomas Lacroix

We are delighted to share a special issue related to Thanatic Ethics, entitled Death and Migration: Perspectives from the Post-Soviet Space.

Introduction:

The last decade has witnessed the proliferation of research articles and projects about death in a migratory context — the focus being alternatively on the body of migrants (Lestage, 2019) or on the creation of community through the management of death among (settled) immigrants. This thematic dossier proposes to capture a specific moment — that of death occurring abroad, within a particular space, namely the post-Soviet space — in order to understand not only how migratory flows are perpetuated and anchored in the arrival territories, but also how management of the deceased can contribute to perpetuating and shaping transnational groups over time, on both sides of the borders they cross. This thematic dossier reviews several dimensions of death management in the context of migration: transnational care and translocal funeral rituals, risk mitigation and resource pooling practices, and transnational deathscapes.

Please refer to the below website for the details of the special issue.

https://journals.openedition.org/remi/21899?lang=en