Description
There persists a popular perception that forensic truth triumphs all others. This view is often mirrored by political processes that look to forensics to establish the truth about mass atrocities, such as Argentina’s truth commission in the mid-1980s. The research project on which this talk is based, Human Rights Human Remains, challenges that perception by investigating the historical, social and political contexts giving rise to the ‘forensic turn’. It shows how it is shaped by the very factors it seems to trump, with radical implications for both forensic action and human rights. It asks, what is the history of the forensic turn in humanitarianism and human rights? What forms of deathwork does it present? Why is the Mexican case significant to this history? And, can we now argue, as a result of extensive forensic activity, that the dead have human rights? The project puts these questions into dialogue with broader considerations of the significance of the mass dead to political life, diverse forms of deathwork, and the longer history of the administration and bureaucratisation of death itself.
