Episode 6.12: Dying Abroad: A Conversation with Osman Balkan

INTERVIEWER: MATT BERKMAN. In this episode, Matt Berkman speaks with OSMAN BALKAN, Associate Director of the Huntsman Program at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Dying Abroad: The Political Afterlives of Migration in Europe. Their conversation delves into the profound yet often overlooked decisions migrants face around death and burial—choices that reflect deeply contested questions about belonging, citizenship, and identity. Drawing from Balkan's firsthand experiences as an undertaker and extensive research in Berlin and Istanbul, this discussion sheds light on how death becomes a site of political struggle and a poignant measure of what "home" truly means in our globalized world.