ABSTRACT
In the context of studying rituals in connection with the ongoing refugee tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea, this contribution explores the cycle of ritual emerging from the refugee’s journey, usually from Africa to Europe. Which rituals, individual and collective, emerge here and which do not? The focus of this contribution is on the memorial repertoire after a shipwreck or a more general memorial repertoire, such as cultural practices (art, literature, photo, film, video) and documentation projects. In addition to the description of the refugee rituals there is the perspective to see these practices as a repertoire of victimhood. For this, three lenses or analytical themes are used to look at the practices as ritual processes with dynamics and politics of their own, at the element of borderland, and material culture and relics.
