States and Diasporas Facing Death in Migration: A Comparative Analysis of the Cases of Senegal and Tunisia before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

What positions do states of origin and their diasporas take in relation to the “right” to body repatriation? By linking the literature on “death and migration” with the corpus of research on diasporas and transnationalism, this article analyses the relationship between emigrants and the authorities of their country of origin through the prism of death. It is based on a comparative survey of policies on body repatriation in twelve states and on ethnographic fieldwork on the mobilisation of associative networks of Senegalese and Tunisian emigrants around the “right” to body repatriation before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. By proposing the notion of a double rejection of “COVID bodies” by the states of residence and origin during the pandemic, this article draws on the concept of moral economy in the analysis of diaspora policies.