Ms Carolina Kobylinsky explained that her initial interest in the subject came from her work on immigration issues and the effects of policies on people's lives. She added that she decided to specialize in this area of research more than ten years ago, following her outrage at media coverage of reports of a migrant boat sinking near the Spanish coast.

Her research project, dealing with death at borders, is part of the anthropology of violence in migration. She began by simplifying some concepts linked to the body and the memory of people who died in migration, with particular emphasis on the impact of deaths at the border on migrants' routes and the importance of civil society in identifying and defining bodies.

For his part, Radouane Frikach stressed that his interest in the subject stemmed from the desire to help others that was instilled in him by his family. Together with a number of friends, he chose to set up the first voluntary Muslim funeral service in Angers, which took the form of a non-profit association. Through its actions and the help it offered, the organization was able to win the trust of the Angers-area community, increasingly in demand of its services due to the growing number of Muslim immigrants in the city and surrounding area.

CCME