About this item
An anthropologist working with forensic teams and victims' families to investigate crimes against humanity in Latin America explores what science can tell us about the lives of the dead in this haunting account of grief, the power of ritual, and a quest for justice.. "Exhumation can divide brothers and restore fathers, open old wounds and open the possibility of regeneration - of building something new with the pile of broken mirrors that is memory, loss, and mourning."Throughout Guatemala's thirty-six-year armed conflict, state forces killed over 200,000 people. Argentina's military dictatorship disappeared up to 30,000 people. In the wake of genocidal violence, families of the missing searched for the truth. Young scientists joined their fight against impunity.
About the Author
Alexa Hagerty is an anthropologist researching science, technology, and human rights. She holds a PhD from Stanford University and is an associate fellow at the University of Cambridge. Her research has received honors and funding from the National Science Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the American Ethnological Society, among others. She has written for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Wired, Social Anthropology, and Palais de Tokyo. Author photo: Hélène Ressayres
