Grief Activism and Solidarity with Migrants Along the EU's Eastern Migratory Route

Bibliographic Data

ID3948904
AuthorsJulija Kekstaite (0000-0003-1369-9597, Ghent University, corresponding author), Vuk Vukotić (0000-0002-6956-6868, Vilnius University)
Year2025
Volume31
Issue4
Pages1-25
Publication date2025-09-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650045.2025.2562293
OpenAlexW4414512780
LanguageEN
References cited48

The EU’s external border restricts the movement of unwanted individuals and subjects them to necropolitical governance. Such governance is sustained by epistemic and affective borders, determining whose lives and deaths are deemed meaningful. Maurice Stierl has proposed the concept of ‘grief activism’ as a form of transformative politics that can subvert such borders. In this paper, we further develop this framework in the specific context of Eastern EUrope, using Lithuania as a case in point. This research explores how the Lithuanian grassroots initiative Sienos Grupė (English: Border Group) engages with the lives and deaths of illegalised migrants and their relatives, invisibilised by the border regime. While research on grief activism has tended to focus on commemorations of migrant deaths, we argue that its scope should be expanded to engage with the entire ‘live-death continuum’ – including the ongoing erosion of conditions for a liveable life in an unequal world. This broader framing provides tools to situate violence against migrants historically and relationally, while seeking to foster alternative directions of affect and political engagement. Drawing on engaged ethnographic fieldwork (2022–2024), semi-structured interviews with members of Sienos Grupė, and an analysis of the group’s public communication, we examine how activists seek recognition for those excluded from dominant regimes of grievability

Grief · Irregular migration · Solidarity · Transnationalism · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

Tools

Open DOI