Governing the dead: Sovereignty and the politics of dead bodies

Description

In most of the world, the transition from life to death is a time of intense presence of states and other forms of authority. Focusing on the relationship between bodies and sovereignty, Governing the dead explores how, by whom and with what effects dead bodies are governed in conflict and non-conflict contexts across the world, including an analysis of the struggles over 'proper burials'; the repatriation of dead migrants; abandoned cemeteries; exhumations; 'feminicide'; the protection of dead drug-lords; and the disappeared dead. Mapping theoretical and empirical terrains, this volume suggests that the management of dead bodies is related to the constitution and membership of states and non-state entities that claim autonomy and impunity. This volume is a significant contribution to studies of death, power and politics. It will be useful at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in anthropology, sociology, law, criminology, political science, international relations, genocide studies, history, cultural studies and philosophy. The research program leading to publication has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n° 283-617. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents List of figures List of tables List of contributors Series editors’ foreword Acknowledgements Intro 1 Introduction Sovereignty and dead bodies The chapters Notes References 2 Governing the dead? Theoretical approaches Fear of death Dead bodies between bio- and necropolitics Rites of separation and the sacralisation of authority Dead agency Conclusion Notes References Part I: Containment and negotiation 3 The proper funeral: death, landscape and power among the Duha Tuvinians of northern Mongolia A socialist, moral and hygienic burial Polluted by socialism Nested within the forest of dangers The agency of the corpse Lawless lives in the forest of laws Notes References 4 Dead zone: pollution, contamination and the neglected dead in post-war Saigon Thresholds and water margins: Binh Hung Hoa cemeteries Dead zones: anxieties over matter out of place Identifying the dead: names and images of the deceased Dead zone: contamination and symbolic pollution Zones of neglect and abjection Notes References 5 Travelling corpses: negotiating sovereign claims in Oaxacan post-mortem repatriation A death in the migrant community The Mexican state’s programme for repatriation of human remains The body and the nation Bureaucratic dead ends – from LA to Oaxaca The corpse and the village of origin Concluding remarks Notes References 6 Claiming the dead, defining the nation: contested narratives of the independence struggle in post conflict Timor-Leste Introduction Politics of the dead and the independence of Timor-Leste The nation and the dead Valorising the dead, narrating the nation Summoning the dead, continuing the struggle Collecting the dead, demanding recognition Discussion Notes References 7 Remaking the dead, uncertainty and the torque of human materials in northern Zimbabwe Introduction Context: the politics of the dead in Zimbabwe The Chibondo exhumations Too ‘fresh’, ‘intact’, fleshy, leaky and stinky? The torque of materiality and the excessive potentiality of human remains The politics of uncertainty Conclusion Notes References Part II: Transgression 8 Governing the disappeared-living and the disappeared-dead: the violent pursuit of cultural sovereignty during authoritarian rule in Argentina Cultural war and the process of national reorganisation Conquering bodies and minds The predicament of the disappeared-living The return of the disappeared-dead Conclusion References 9 Dangerous corpses in Mexico’s drug war The story of Beltrán Leyva’s corpse The story of the marine’s corpse Sovereign bodies and the will to violence The substance of dead bodies The ‘force’ of forgotten bones Concluding remarks Notes References 10 Time as weather: corpse-work in the prehistory of political boundaries Insurgent law, an afterlife Questions Two weathers Shifting terrains A resonance in time Escarmiento Acknowledgements Notes References 11 Governing through the mutilated female body: corpse, bodypolitics and contestation in contemporary Guatemala Introduction Gendering the corpse: homicide, femicide and feminicide Quantifying the corpses: homicide and feminicide rates in Guatemala Mutilating the female body in acts and discourse Governing through necropolitics and narcopolitics Conclusion Notes References Outro 12 Abandonment and victory in relations with dead bodies I II III IV V VI VII Notes References Index