Élisabeth Anstett

Jean-Marc Dreyfus

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Human remains and society presents a groundbreaking account of the treatment and commemoration of dead bodies resulting from incidents of genocide and mass violence. Whether reburied, concealed, stored, abandoned or publically displayed, human remains raise a vast number of questions regarding social, legal and ethical uses by communities, public institutions and civil society organisations. Through a diverse range of international case studies, across multiple continents, this highly innovative book explores the effect of dead bodies or body parts, either desired or unintended, on various political, cultural or religious practices. How, for instance, do issues of confiscation, concealment or the destruction of human remains in mass crime impact on transitional processes, commemoration or judicial procedures? Multidisciplinary in scope, Human remains and society will appeal to readers interested in the crucial phase of post-conflict reconciliation. This includes students and researchers of history, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, law, politics and modern warfare.

Curation and exhibition in the aftermath of genocide and mass-violence

Human remains in society

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Human remains and identification presents a pioneering investigation into the practices and methodologies used in the search for and exhumation of dead bodies resulting from mass violence. Previously absent from forensic debate, social scientists and historians here confront historical and contemporary exhumations with the application of social context to create an innovative and interdisciplinary dialogue, enlightening the political, social and legal aspects of mass crime and its aftermaths. Through a ground-breaking selection of international case studies, Human remains and identification argues that the emergence of new technologies to facilitate the identification of dead bodies has led to a "forensic turn", normalising exhumations as a method of dealing with human remains en masse. However, are these exhumations always made for legitimate reasons? Multidisciplinary in scope, this book will appeal to readers interested in understanding this crucial phase of mass violence's aftermath, including researchers in history, anthropology, sociology, forensic science, law, politics and modern warfare. The research program leading to this publication has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n° 283-617.

Mass violence, genocide, and the ‘forensic turn’

Human remains and identification

Destruction and human remains investigates a crucial question frequently neglected in academic debate in the fields of mass violence and genocide studies: what is done to the bodies of the victims after they are killed? In the context of mass violence, death does not constitute the end of the executors' work. Their victims' remains are often treated and manipulated in very specific ways, amounting in some cases to true social engineering with often remarkable ingenuity. To address these seldom-documented phenomena, this volume includes chapters based on extensive primary and archival research to explore by why, how and by whom these acts have been committed through recent history. The book opens this line of enquiry by investigating the ideological, technical and practical motivations for the varying practices pursued by the perpetrator, examining a diverse range of historical events from throughout the twentieth century and across the globe. These nine original chapters explore this demolition of the body through the use of often systemic, bureaucratic and industrial processes, whether by disposal, concealment, exhibition or complete bodily annihilation, to display the intentions and socio-political frameworks of governments, perpetrators and bystanders. Never before has a single publication brought together the extensive amount of work devoted to the human body on the one hand and to mass violence on the other, and until now the question of the body in the context of mass violence has remained a largely unexplored area. Interdisciplinary in scope, Destruction and human remains will appeal to readers interested in the history and implications of genocide and mass violence, including researchers in anthropology, sociology, history, politics and modern warfare.

Élisabeth Anstett

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