Adam Rosenblatt

Digging for the Disappeared

Forensic Science After Atrocity

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Adam Rosenblatt teaches Peace, Justice, and Human Rights at Haverford College.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 304
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. April 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 239mm x 159mm x 22mm
• Gewicht: 522g
• ISBN-13: 9780804788779
• ISBN-10: 0804788774
• Artikelnr.: 41753517

Autorenporträt

Adam Rosenblatt teaches Peace, Justice, and Human Rights at Haverford College.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1The Stakeholders in International Forensic Investigations
chapter abstract
This chapter analyzes the politics of mass graves through the lens of three
major stakeholders: courts and war crimes tribunals, transitional
governments, and families of the missing. It argues for the necessity of an
international perspective based on common dynamics around mass gravesites,
the global circulation of forensic experts, and the construction of ethics
in the field. Mid-1990s exhumations in Bosnia and Kosovo are described as a
"formative controversy" pitting the pressure to collect evidence quickly
against the needs of families of the missing. The chapter also looks at two
ways of framing the purposes of forensic investigations and the needs of
stakeholders: creating a historical record backed by science and building
capacity in post-conflict nations. The chapter concludes with a look at the
process of identifying Chile's "disappeared," which illustrates how
scientific and political realities can complicate simple narratives of
collective memory and capacity-building.
2The Politics of Grief
chapter abstract
An early and enduring objection to mass grave exhumation is that in
offering "closure" to individuals, it undercuts political demands for
justice. This perspective was voiced most famously by some of Argentina's
famous human rights activists, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, whose opposing
views on exhumation eventually fueled a schism in their ranks. This chapter
argues that the Madres' views must be understood within the context of
Argentina's particular transitional justice history, as well as for their
subsequent impact on families of the missing globally. In contrast to other
scholarship, the chapter pays equal attention to the pro-exhumation
perspective of the "Línea Fundadora" group of Madres, generally written off
as more straightforward and less radical than their peers. Their stance, it
argues, is founded on compelling views of the political impact of
exhumations, duties to the children of the "disappeared," and the care of
the dead.
3Forensics of the Sacred
chapter abstract
This chapter examines another important reason some mass graves have not
been exhumed: the belief that graves and dead bodies are sacred, and that
to disturb them is a desecration. Using halted exhumations of Holocaust-era
graves of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland and of massacred refugees in Congo as
examples, it argues that the dynamics at these gravesites should not be
viewed as clashes between international justice and "local culture" because
the interests fueling religious objections are neither exclusively local
nor solely religious. The chapter looks at recommendations that have been
provided to forensic teams for handling these highly charged situations,
and finds that they share a longstanding discomfort-present since the
drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights-with how the idea of
the sacred interacts with the language and imperatives of human rights in
both theory and practice.
4Dead to Rights
chapter abstract
The rights of the dead, rarely invoked by forensic experts, are a last
frontier for a field that has already embraced new human rights to truth,
knowledge, and even mourning. Yet this frontier of human rights is
essential to understanding forensic teams as political communities, the
ways their successes and failures are measured, and what role the dead
themselves play in the global project of exhumation. This chapter argues
that violence against the dead, unlike that directed towards the living,
may render them permanently rightless-and that human rights are thus a poor
way to understand what exhumation and identification do for the dead. The
chapter begins a more modest, concrete description of the changes forensic
experts make to dead bodies by detailing the three major types of violence
inflicted upon the bodies in mass graves-destruction of identity, placement
in an unchosen location, and deprivation of care.
5Caring for the Dead
chapter abstract
This chapter offers a care perspective on international forensic
investigations and a definition of care in the context of mass graves. It
presents care ethics as a way of focusing on relationships and processes
over abstract principles, and argues for their importance in describing the
relationships between forensic experts, dead bodies, and mourners. Rather
than a replacement for human rights or recipe for paternalism, care can
also illuminate the dangers and delicate balances of forensic work. The
chapter uses examples from memoirs and interviews to show how care and its
absence are felt in the field-including in the relationships between
forensic investigators. It ends with a call to combine the strands of
science and humanism present in forensic investigation by seeing dead
bodies as part of a wider landscape of "precious things" and of professions
that have dedicated themselves to the repair and maintenance of those
things.
IntroductionBorn at the Graves: A Human Rights Movement Takes Shape
chapter abstract
This chapter provides a historical overview of how forensic science came to
be used in the service of human rights causes, beginning with the
Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo's request for help from American forensic
experts to conduct scientific exhumations of Argentina's "disappeared" and
aid in the search for their kidnapped grandchildren. It describes forensic
investigations as an increasingly institutionalized part of the
international response to conflict-a global project of unearthing the
dead-which has challenged traditional notions of the purposes of forensic
science and required significant adaptation to unforeseen conditions on the
ground. The book introduces some of the disciplines involved in forensic
investigation, and then outlines four ethical tenets shared by
organizations that conduct these investigations through a human rights
lens: science as a privileged form of truth, political autonomy, moral
universalism, and a focus on the needs of victims and mourners.