Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:10:45.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Buried lives

Forensic Archaeology and the disappeared in Argentina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Abstract

This paper writes a history of the forensic excavations in Argentina of the remains of ‘the disappeared’; people who were abducted and murdered under the military governments of the 1970s and early 1980s. The physical remains of these people were, and still are, located at a nexus of desires and attempts to reconstruct both individual and national collective memory, through creating and sustaining the individual and collective identities of the disappeared. As such the human remains have become a vigorously contested site for different and irreconcilable constructions. This paper considers the ambiguity of human remains; the tensions between humans as bodies and as people, the difficult issue of human embodiment after death, and the incompatible narratives that arise from these ambiguities. A textual analysis of the narratives created around the excavations of the disappeared in the Argentinian and English speaking media is used to illustrate the ways in which archaeological narratives about the dead are used in the creation of conflicting societal and personal constructions of the human body in Argentina, and the effect that this has had on the ways the disappeared are remembered.

Type
In Brief
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

A version of this paper, translated into Spanish by Marcela Malmierca of the Institute of Anthropological Science, University of Buenos Aires, is available, on request, from the author.

References

Agosin, M., 1990: Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Linea Fundadora). The story of Renee Epelbaum, 1976–1985, translated by Malloy, J., Trenton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Asociacion de Ex Detenidos-Desaparecidos, 1988: Victimas identificados, pero asesinos anónimos. Advertisement, Página 12 March, Buenos Aires, 13.Google Scholar
Asociación Madres de, Plaza de Mayo, 1989: Luchamos por la vida, no los traicionamos. Advertisement, Página 12 December 22nd, Buenos Aires, 6.Google Scholar
Bellelli, C. and Tobin, J., 1996: Archaeology of the desaparecidos, http://www.ssci.ucsd.edu-/SAABulletin/14.2SAA9 (No longer current).Google Scholar
Bouvard, M.G., 1994: Revolutionizing motherhood. The mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Wilmington, Delaware.Google Scholar
Brysk, A., 1994: The politics of measurement. The contested count in the disappeared in Argentina, in Human rights quarterly, 676692.Google Scholar
Christian, S., 1987a: Mothers march, but to 2 drummers, New York times February 21st, New York, 4.Google Scholar
Christian, S., 1987b: Argentina chief resists demands of officers rebellious over arrest, New York times April 17th, New York, 1, 3.Google Scholar
Christian, S., 1987c: Argentina's army moves to head off officer rebellion, New York times April 18th, NewYork, 1, 5.Google Scholar
CONADEP, 1984: Nunca mas. Report on the disappearances, Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
Crossland, Z., forthcoming: Violent spaces. Conflict over the reappearance of Argentina's disappeared, in Beck, C., Johnson, W.G. and Schofield, J. (eds), The archaeology of 20th century conflict, London.Google Scholar
Elon, A., 1986: Letter from Argentina, New Yorker July 21st, New York, 7486.Google Scholar
Familiares de, Desaparecidos y, Detenidos por, Razones Politicas, 1990: No los traicionamos, luchamos por la vida, Advertisement, Página 12 January 10th, Buenos Aires, 6.Google Scholar
Fisher, J., 1989: Mothers of the disappeared, London/Boston.Google Scholar
Graziano, F., 1992: Divine violence. Spectacle, psychosexuality, and radical Christianity in the Argentine ‘dirty war’, Boulder.Google Scholar
Green, M., 1986: Dr. Clyde Snow helps victims of Argentina's ‘dirty war’ bear witness from beyond the grave, People December 8th, London.Google Scholar
Huntington, R. and Metcalf, P., 1979: Celebrations of death. The anthropology of mortuary ritual, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Jelin, E., 1994: The politics of memory. The human rights movement and the construction of democracy in Argentina, Latin American perspectives. Social movements and political change in Latin America 81, 3857.Google Scholar
Joyce, C. and Stover, E., 1991: Witnesses from the grave. The stories bones tell, Boston.Google Scholar
Kisilevski, M., 1990: Testimonio de una lucha contra el olvido y la impunidad, Nueva Sion January 19th, Buenos Aires, 89.Google Scholar
Lopez, L., 1989: Scene: in Argentina. Digging up the grim past, Time May 23rd, New York, 52.Google Scholar
Lowenthal, D., 1985: The past is a foreign country, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Malin, A., 1994: Mother who won't disappear, Human rights quarterly 16:1, 187213.Google Scholar
Martínez, T. E., 1997: Santa Evita, translated by Lane, Helen, London.Google Scholar
Michaud, S. G., 1987: Identifying Argentina's disappeared, New York times, (Sunday colour supplement) December 27th, New York, 1821.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M., 1982: Mortuary practices, society and ideology. An ethnoarchaeological study, in Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and structural archaeology, Cambridge, 99114.Google Scholar
Olmo, D., 1994: EAAF personal communication, 11 March, Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
Riding, A., 1987: Argentina delays attack on rebels, New York times April 19th, New York, 1, 17.Google Scholar
Salama, M. C., 1992: Tumbas anonimas, Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
Scarry, E., 1985: The body in pain, Oxford.Google Scholar
Shanks, M. and Tilley, C., 1987: Social theory and archaeology, Oxford.Google Scholar
Sims, C., 1996: Eternal rest? Not in Argentina, New York times October 13th, Section 4, New York.Google Scholar
Sims, C., 1998: Argentines clash over a place of horrors, New York times January 18th, New York, 10.Google Scholar
Snow, C. C., Stover, E. and Hannibal, K., 1989: Scientists as detectives. Investigating human rights, Technology review 92: 2, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 4351.Google Scholar
Tarlow, S., 1999: Bereavement and commemoration. An archaeology of mortality, Oxford.Google Scholar
Taylor, D., 1997: Disappearing acts. Spectacles of gender and nationalism in Argentina's ‘Dirty War’, Durham.Google Scholar
Thompson, J., 1998: Bodies, minds, and human remains, in Cox, M. (ed.), Grave concerns. Death and burial in post-medieval England, York, 197201.Google Scholar
Turner, B. S., 1996: The Body and society. Explorations in social theory, London.Google Scholar
Unsworth, T., 1989: The body hunters, The independent magazine September 30th, London, 3236.Google Scholar
Verbitsky, H., 1993: Identificación de una Mujer, Página 12 January 10th, Buenos Aires, 89.Google Scholar
Wylie, A., 1996: The constitution of archaeological evidence. Gender politics and science, in Galison, P. and Stump, D. J. (eds), The disunity of science. Boundaries, contexts and power. Stanford.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, L. J., 1989: Made radical by my own. An archaeologist learns to accept reburial, in Layton, R. (ed.), Conflict in the archaeology of living traditions, London, 6067.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, L. J., 1989: Human bones as symbols of power; aboriginal American belief systems towards bones and ‘grave-robbing’ archaeologists, in Layton, R. (ed.), Conflict in the archaeology of living traditions, London, 211216.Google Scholar