Taking Care of Others and the Self through Islamic Funeral Service in Berlin

Abstract

This article examines how Islamic funeral services contribute to the production of care in Berlin. Deriving from participant observations, in-depth interviews with migrant undertakers with Turkish backgrounds, and a collection of textual and visual materials, the article focuses on the practices of migrant undertakers. Against the essentialist arguments inherent to the identity politics of the existing scholarship on migrant death in Berlin and in Germany, I analyze this case study through a critical reading of the scholarship on ethnic entrepreneurship. In this context, I illustrate three findings on the production of care, which emerge at the intersection of technologies of the self and domination à la Foucault. In the first dimension, care is given to the deceased, (particularly those with an “immigrant background” from Turkey), their bereaved families and co-migrants, visitors, and employees of various institutions in Berlin. The second dimension of care is produced, as a form of self-examination, through migrant undertakers' recollections and reflections. In the third dimension, care is the result of socio-economic policies, related to the prospect of the emergence and development of ethnic entrepreneurship.