Contemporary regimes of disappearance and the unequal treatment of human remains

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the death and unequal treatment of human remains in contemporary Brazilian society. It provides an innovative approach to documenting practices such as state inaction and structural violence from an archaeology perspective and explores concepts such as contemporary regimes of disappearance, state apparatus, violence and the ‘right to memory’ in a neoliberal context. Rather than merely using dichotomies such as repression and visibility, or oppression versus rights, the aim is to use archaeological evidence to problematize the dominant understandings of politics and question the ways in which class, race and gender are used in neoliberal policies by transforming human beings who were not ‘profitable in life’ into ‘profitable in death’.

KEYWORDS:

• Human remains
• cemeteries
• disappearances
• inequalities
• contemporary archaeology

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors and reviewers that contributed to a better version of this text. This paper and research wouldn`t be possible without the support and contribution of Adriano Diogo, Eliana Vendramini, Pádua Fernandes, Constantino and the employees of the Quarta Parada cemetery, Funeral Service of São Paulo municipality, Alfredo González-Ruibal and Anxo Rodríguez-Paz.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. A pseudonym equivalent to ‘John Doe’ is used here to preserve the privacy of this individual and their family.

2. Programa de Localização e Identificação de Pessoas Desaparecidas – PLID.

3. A Truth Commission created as an official body of São Paulo state in Brazil established to investigate a series of human rights violations during Brazilian Military Dictatorship.

4. The last Brazilian dictatorship took place between 1964 and 1985 by a military coup with the support of civilians especially businessmen, who benefited from the regime.

5. Translated as “They thought he was an indigent”.

6. Conselho Estadual dos Direitos da Pessoa Humana – SP ‘State Council for the Defence of the Human Person’.

7. All the different ways of naming the ossuary were aggregated: ossário coletivo, ossário coletivo 111, ossário 111.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Margarita Salas Fellowship - Spanish Ministry of Universities [MARSA 22/31].

Notes on contributors

Márcia Lika Hattori

Márcia Lika Hattori is a Post-doctoral researcher at the University of Basque Country and Visiting researcher at Archaeology Unit at the University of Minho – Portugal. Her PhD was developed through a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action research fellowship at the Institute of Heritage Sciences, an institute of the Spanish National Research Council (Incipit – CSIC). Her research was developed within the framework of a European project on Critical Heritage Studies with training at different European universities. This work focused on the aspects of heritage policies related to the traumatic past as well as uncovering how the style of bureaucracy and the management of the last dictatorship, related to the disappearance of persons and (often unidentified) dead bodies in São Paulo, Brazil, persists until today (the democratic period). Márcia Hattori’s background includes a Bachelor’s degree in History from the University of São Paulo – USP (2009), an MPhil in Archaeology from the University of São Paulo – USP (2015) and a Masters in Forensic Anthropology applied to Human Rights in Spain (2019). During her Master´s she investigated the role of heritage policies and archaeology in conflict zones related to local communities, environmental licensing and historical cemeteries in Brazil. Her complementary training involved different courses related to Forensic Anthropology, Quantitative and Qualitative research, Archives, Heritage in Conflict Areas, methodologies of community participation, Oral History and Ethnography. From 2007 to 2013, she worked on archaeology projects, coordinating scientific dissemination projects in different Brazilian municipalities and developing collaborative projects and workshops with school teachers and community agents. From 2008 to 2012, she worked on the creation of an historical and archaeological museum, based on the development of work with different communities in the municipality of Lins, in the state of São Paulo. In the years from 2014 to 2017, she was responsible for the coordination of the preliminary investigation for the searches of ‘disappeared people’ in the city of São Paulo. Ms. Hattori has also carried out fieldwork on the processes of memorialization related to the internal conflict in Peru and forensic cases in Brazil, along with similar fieldwork in Portugal, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guinea Bissau. In Spain, she has been working on projects related to the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship.