Hagerty, Alexa,
Still life with bones : genocide, forensics, and what remains / Alexa Hagerty. - First edition. - xvi, 300 pages ; 22 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-300).
BookPage, March 01, 2023 Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2023 Booklist, February 15, 2023 Publishers Weekly, January 09, 2023
"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. Today, forensic anthropologists in each country are gathering evidence to prove atrocities and seek justice. But these teams do more than just study skeletons-they work to repair families and countries torn apart by violence. In Still Life with Bones, anthropologist Alexa Hagerty learns to see the dead body with a forensic eye. She examines bones for evidence of torture and fatal wounds-hands bound by rope, cuts from machetes-but also for signs of a life lived: to articulate how life shapes us down to the bone. In the tenderness of understanding these bones, Hagerty discovers how exhumation serves as a ritual in the naming and placement of the dead, and connects ancestors with future generations. She shows us how this work can bring meaning to families dealing with unimaginable loss, and how its symbolic force can also extend to entire societies in the aftermath of state terror and genocide. Encountering the dead has the power to transform us, making us consider each other, our lives, and the world differently. Weaving together powerful stories about investigative breakthroughs, grieving families, histories of violence, and her own forensic coming of age, Hagerty crafts a moving portrait of the living and the dead"--
9780593443132 $28.00
2022039668
Forensic anthropology--Latin America.
Genocide.
Victims of violent crimes.
GN69.8 / .H33 2023
599.9
Still life with bones : genocide, forensics, and what remains / Alexa Hagerty. - First edition. - xvi, 300 pages ; 22 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-300).
BookPage, March 01, 2023 Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2023 Booklist, February 15, 2023 Publishers Weekly, January 09, 2023
"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. Today, forensic anthropologists in each country are gathering evidence to prove atrocities and seek justice. But these teams do more than just study skeletons-they work to repair families and countries torn apart by violence. In Still Life with Bones, anthropologist Alexa Hagerty learns to see the dead body with a forensic eye. She examines bones for evidence of torture and fatal wounds-hands bound by rope, cuts from machetes-but also for signs of a life lived: to articulate how life shapes us down to the bone. In the tenderness of understanding these bones, Hagerty discovers how exhumation serves as a ritual in the naming and placement of the dead, and connects ancestors with future generations. She shows us how this work can bring meaning to families dealing with unimaginable loss, and how its symbolic force can also extend to entire societies in the aftermath of state terror and genocide. Encountering the dead has the power to transform us, making us consider each other, our lives, and the world differently. Weaving together powerful stories about investigative breakthroughs, grieving families, histories of violence, and her own forensic coming of age, Hagerty crafts a moving portrait of the living and the dead"--
9780593443132 $28.00
2022039668
Forensic anthropology--Latin America.
Genocide.
Victims of violent crimes.
GN69.8 / .H33 2023
599.9