Exploring the Economies of Transnational Death Rituals amongst Kenyan immigrant religious communities

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Death, mourning, and burial rituals provide a structured way for communities and families to express grief and process the emotional impact of death. While death knows no borders, labor migration and medical tourism have necessitated instances of its occurrence outside one’s country. As globalization and migration increase, labor and healthcare migrants are often separated from their home communities, creating challenges in maintaining religious, social, and cultural connections, especially during death-related events. Physical and virtual religious communities have, in multiple ways, prompted transnationalism in various aspects, including death and mourning rituals. This paper explores the economies of transnational death rituals among Kenyan immigrants, focusing on the intersection of economic, cultural, and spiritual tenets surrounding death. A narrative methodology will be adopted for two death, mourning, and burial cases of Kenyan immigrants occurring outside the country. Afrocentricity theory, which centers on African values, cultures, and perspectives in understanding African experiences, guides the analysis. Afrocentricity seeks to ground African agency, dignity, and identity by prioritizing African cultural norms, philosophies, and traditions as central to African phenomena. It offers a vigorous framework for understanding how death rituals sustain the cultural, spiritual, and economic lifeblood of both African indigenous and diasporic communities. This paper, however, argues that the unique economic, spiritual, and cultural practices surrounding transnational death rituals complicate and reshape established notions of death and mourning rituals, extending them across time and space in ways that challenge conventional epistemologies.

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