Both historical and contemporary records of mass contagion provide occasions for visibility to persons who otherwise remain little recognised and even less studied: those who bury the dead. While global reports attest to self-advocacy among cemetery workers in the current COVID-19 pandemic, the psychological complexities of their labour go virtually unseen. Findings on the experiences of those doing such work reveal a striking contrast. While societal disavowal often renders their task as abject and forgettable, those who inter the remains frequently report affective connections to the dead that powerfully, and poignantly, undermine this erasure. Acknowledging such empathic relationality allows us to look at this profession in areas where it has never been considered, such as psychoanalytic work on ‘mentalisation’ or in contemporary ethics. The article concludes with an example from the accounts of those who have buried the dead in the massed graves on New York’s Hart Island.
pollen samples collected from different locations.48 Finally, and most conclusively, the relationship of primary to secondary mass grave sites has been verified through results of DNA 154 Admir Jugo and Sari Wastell analysis conducted by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).49 Since 2001, the ICMP have been in charge of the exhumation process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since 2009, this has been under the auspices of the state-level Missing Persons Institute (MPI). ICMP has been implementing its DNA-led identification process in BiH since 2001, and
Uruguayan dictatorship (1973–84) one must take into account its different antecedents, which contributed to the political violence that took place in the River Plate region The military dictatorship in Uruguay 85 in the second half of the twentieth century and further developed its particular characteristics. Violent social practices in this region have an ancient cultural significance, and they brought their own rhythm to the area’s long-term historical processes. Acts of genocide, mass graves, clandestine grave sites, and the destruction of bodies form part of a
configure their relationship to the American nation. Stretching back to the nineteenth-century traditions of ethnology, physical anthropology and phrenology, scientists have collected thousands of skulls and other remains from American Indians, often from battle sites. Many were stored in the Smithsonian Institution, which opened in 1846. Some of these were acquired with appropriate permission, but many were taken fraudulently or by stealing from mass grave-sites. Native UNITED STATES 241 Americans have increasingly sought the return of these human remains for proper
une anthropologie de la trace (Paris: Pétra, 2009), p. 115. Emphasis added. 20 See the photographs taken by Ivan Panikarov to accompany his article ‘Le chemin s’arrête-t-il là?’, in Anstett & Jurgenson, Le Goulag en héritage, pp. 131–41. 7 The HRMV.indb 194 01/09/2014 17:28:44 Remains from the gulags 195 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 HRMV.indb 195 Memorial, a non-governmental organization (NGO), has begun drawing up an inventory of the mass graves sited on the territory of the former USSR. Its website, Gulagmuseum.org, contains a
younger. However, the process of change has not been problem-free. Periodic protests reflect islanders’ feelings of exclusion from what many regarded as their birthright. In the early stages of hotel development in the 1990s the local population protested at the desecration of grave sites while the resort was being built. I spoke with one elderly lady who led the protest and who described to me her
have been shared by the cemetery’s users. One of the exceptions is Garton Slack II, East Yorkshire, which consisted of loosely defined lines organised into two clusters of twenty-nine and thirty-two burials, separated by a gap of 14 m ( Figure 2.10 ; Mortimer, 1905 : 247–57). Garton Slack II was a later cemetery and seems to have inherited its location and structure from its proximity to earlier ditches (Lucy, 2000a : 128). Another exception is the row-grave site at Marina Drive in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, which consisted of a cemetery organised into three rows. In
. Ferlini, Forensic Anthropology: Case Studies from Europe (Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, 2007), pp. 203–5; N. Lisova, ‘Ukraine grave site recalls Holocaust’, Washington Post, 13 June 2007. URL: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/13/ AR2007061301564.html (accessed 13 June 2007); Deutsche Welle, ‘World War II euthanasia victims found in German mass grave’, 29 September 2006. URL: www.dw.com/en/world-war-ii-euthanasia-victims-found- in-german-mass-grave/a-2189117 (accessed 19 January 2008). 19 P. Novick, The Holocaust in
Sagrada Familia to take action against a demobilisation ceremony for F-FDTL and Falintil members in August 2011 (although the Falintil had actually been demobilised a decade earlier). As Cornelio ‘L-7’ Gama of the Sagrada Familia stated: ‘We [are] totally against this demobilisation program, because it is not the time to demobilise veterans or FALINTIL’ (Diario Nacional 2011a). Given the widespread importance of maintaining contact with ancestral spirits in Timor-Leste society through grave sites, it remains far from clear whether family and kin members are as
, between 600,000 Culture wars in the American West 19 and 1 million Native grave sites were excavated. We will never know the exact number, but I do not think 1 million is an unreasonable estimate.29 The looting of graves was linked to the rise of the modern museum and scientific curiosity about human origins and human differences. Initially, exhumation was motivated by the search for rare Native artefacts, a global enterprise generated first by international military operations. George Vancouver’s Pacific expedition (1790–95) had several collectors on board