Migrants' deaths at Europe's southern border: Cultural psychological dimensions of memory and mourning in Lampedusa.

This article examines the deaths of undocumented migrants in the Mediterranean Sea—referred to as border-deaths—through a sociocultural psychological lens, focusing on the Italian island of Lampedusa as a symbolic and geopolitical border of Europe. Using empirical data from interviews and observations with Lampedusan citizens, the study identifies three key themes: the primacy of lived experience in resisting external narratives, relational diffidence toward outsiders perceived as exploitative, and memorialization practices that sustain community solidarity and identity. These findings highlight how collective memory and local activism function as forms of resistance against dominant securitarian and humanitarian discourses, preserving the symbolic and material cohesion of the Lampedusan community amid ongoing political and social challenges. The research contributes to border studies and memory theory by emphasizing the psychological and semiotic dimensions of living at liminal geopolitical boundaries.