Deep Mapping Grief and Loss in the Context of Migration – José Alavez
Posted: 11/6/2025 (CSDE Seminar Series)
When: Friday, November 14 at 12:30 pm
Where: Parrington Hall 360 and on Zoom
We are looking forward to hosting CSDE Affiliate José Alavez from the University of Washington on Friday, November 14 in Parrington Hall 360 and on Zoom. This seminar is co-sponsored by the Population Health Initiative.
The death of a loved one is one of the most challenging episodes in a person’s life. This experience becomes even more complicated when someone dies in the context of migration. Beyond the emotional shock, family members and friends might have to hold posthumous ceremonies at a distance, organize the corpse’s repatriation, and deal with their own need to grieve from far away. In this research, Alavez aims to shed light on the potential of mapping for revealing these intimate and heterogenous posthumous geographies.
To do so, Alavez has deployed three different cartographic strategies. First, Alavez designed a series of narrative maps to focus on postmortem mobilities. These maps reveal that the movement of bodies continues to be influenced by emotional and economic decisions after death. They also display the local and global networks of communication and support triggered by the demise of a migrant. Second, Alavez mobilized a mapping approach dedicated to charting the personal and the emotional (i.e., sensibility mapping) to represent the very intimate moments associated with the experience of death in the context of migration. Finally, Alavez introduces the concept of “mapping-ofrenda” as a form of mourning and remembering. This third project emphasizes the value of the mapping process and the opportunity it offers to turn memories into maps. It also illustrates the importance to reconnect with the past and with relatives from afar. As a whole, Alavez consider deep mapping as an intimate and non-replicable practice, as a desire and a never-ending task that calls for a diversification of mapping forms and practices to reflect and face the challenges of engaging with difficult stories. This work also establishes postmortem cartographies of mobilities, grief, memory, emotions, and solidarity as essential components of the geographies of death in migratory contexts.