The Exhumation of Civilian Victims of Conflict and Human Rights Abuses

Renshaw, Layla

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199569069.013.0043

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Apart from not being afforded a proper funeral, the dead in group (b) have suffered violent deaths, fatal disease or other misfortunes, with their bodies neglected, mistreated, dissected, improperly buried or disappeared (Crossland, 2009a, b;Pettigrew, 2000;Renshaw, 2013b;Robben, 2000;Tarlow & Battell Lowman, 2018;Weiss-Krejci, 2013). The manner of death and burial overwrites previous identities that would have determined these persons' funerary rites.…”

Section: Approaching the Living And Dead In This Bookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction: An Introduction

Weiss‐Krejci

Becker²,

Schwyzer

2022

Bioarchaeology and Social Theory

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In the present as in the past, the dead have been deployed to promote visions of identity, as well as ostensibly wider human values. Through a series of case studies from ancient Egypt through prehistoric, historic, and present-day Europe, this book discusses what is constant and what is locally and historically specific in our ways of interacting with the remains of the dead, their objects, and monuments. Postmortem interaction encompasses not only funerary rituals and intergenerational engagement with forebears, but also concerns encounters with the dead who died centuries and millennia ago. Drawing from a variety of disciplines such as archaeology, bioarchaeology, literary studies, ancient Egyptian philology and literature, and sociocultural anthropology, this volume provides an interdisciplinary account of the ways in which the dead are able to transcend temporal distances and engender social relationships. In this introduction, we highlight some unifying aspects of this book.

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Section: Approaching the Living And Dead In This Bookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction: An Introduction

Weiss‐Krejci

Becker²,

Schwyzer

2022

Bioarchaeology and Social Theory

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“…In the past 30 years, forensic exhumation of the dead has become a normative human rights practice (Gessat‐Anstett and Dreyfus 2015; Renshaw 2013; Rosenblatt 2015). Exhumation in the wake of political violence has two aims: to provide legal evidence of human rights abuses that can be used in judicial processes and to bring closure to families of the missing by allowing the proper burial of the dead.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Melancholy of Bones: Forensic Exhumation as an Elegiac Transformative Experience

Hagerty

2021

Ethos

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Since the early 1990s, forensic exhumation of mass graves in the wake of violent conflict has become an increasingly important humanitarian intervention. Exhumation has two stated aims: to document evidence of atrocity for judicial proceedings and to return bodies to families to bring psychological closure. Exhumation is premised on the idea that opening graves bring mourners’ closure, but little research has been done to examine how humanitarian exhumation affects the families of the missing. In this article, I consider the return of the exhumed remains to families and reflect on the relationship between mourning, violence, and transformation. I argue that humanitarian forensic exhumation is underwritten by a model of grief derived from Freud's distinction between mourning and melancholy. Drawing on fieldwork in Argentina, I claim that this model ultimately proves inadequate to capture the varieties of experience described by families of the missing. I develop “elegiac transformation” as a theoretical lens to explore experiences of exhumation. While forensic discourse emphasizes “closure,” the return of bodies to families may be more generatively conceived as opening memories, old wounds, and new possibilities for healing, transforming its participants. [death forced disappearance mourning forensic exhumation and transformative experience] Résument Desde la década de 1990, la exhumación forense de fosas comunes después de conflictos violentos se ha convertido en una intervención humanitaria de creciente importancia. La exhumación tiene dos objetivos explícitos: documentar evidencia de atrocidades para los procedimientos judiciales y devolver los cuerpos a las familias para lograr un cierre psicológico. La exhumación se basa en la idea de que la apertura de las fosas produce un cierre psicológico para los dolientes, pero se han realizado pocas investigaciones para examinar cómo afecta la exhumación humanitaria a las familias de los desaparecidos. En este artículo, abordo el tema de la devolución de los restos exhumados a las familias y reflejo la relación entre el duelo, la violencia y la transformación. Sostengo que la exhumación forense humanitaria está suscrita por un modelo de duelo derivado de la distinción de Freud entre el duelo y la melancolía. Basándome en el trabajo de campo en Argentina, afirmo que este modelo finalmente resulta inadecuado para aprehender las variedades de experiencias descritas por las familias de los desaparecidos. Elaboro la "transformación elegíaca" como una lente teórica para explorar las experiencias de la exhumación. Mientras que el discurso forense hace énfasis en el "cierre", el retorno de los cuerpos a las familias puede ser conceptualizado de manera más generativa como la apertura de recuerdos, antiguas heridas y nuevas posibilidades de sanación, transformando a sus participantes.

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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Conversations Across the Veil

2023

Death Studies

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The Exhumation of Civilian Victims of Conflict and Human Rights Abuses

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction: An Introduction

Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction: An Introduction

The Melancholy of Bones: Forensic Exhumation as an Elegiac Transformative Experience

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Conversations Across the Veil

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