This workshop addresses the first phase of the research programme “Corpses of mass violence and genocide”. In the context of mass violence and genocide, death is not the end of the executors’ work. After the abuses, the victims’ corpses are treated and manipulated in very specific ways, amounting in some cases to true social engineering; this phase is remarkably little documented in the existing research. This conference aims therefore to explore this phase of destruction, across a range of extreme situations including mass cremations, concealment, profanation, displacement or re-burials. Focused on the 20th century, the conference will seek to reevaluate the motivations, the ideological frameworks and the technical processes at work in the destruction of corpses, taking a comparative and instrumental perspective which should open to new research in mass violence and genocide studies.

Presentation

Une traduction simultanée sera assurée de/vers le trançais et l'anglais - translation will be provided from/to english and french

This workshop addresses the first phase of the research programme “Corpses of mass violence and genocide”. In the context of mass violence and genocide, death is not the end of the executors’ work. After the abuses, the victims’ corpses are treated and manipulated in very specific ways, amounting in some cases to true social engineering; this phase is remarkably little documented in the existing research. This conference aims therefore to explore this phase of destruction, across a range of extreme situations including mass cremations, concealment, profanation, displacement or re-burials. Focused on the 20th century, the conference will seek to reevaluate the motivations, the ideological frameworks and the technical processes at work in the destruction of corpses, taking a comparative and instrumental perspective which should open to new research in mass violence and genocide studies.

Programm

12th September 2012

• 14h00-15h30 - introductory address by Elisabeth Anstett (CNRS, France) & Jean-Marc Dreyfus (University of Manchester, GB)

• Key note speech: Yehonathan Alsheh (Tel Aviv University, Israel)

16h00-17h30 - Ideologies

Chair : Joost Fontein (The University of Edinburgh, GB)

• Remi Korman (EHESS, France)
• Michael Mc Connel (The University of Tennessee, USA)

13th September 2012

9h00-10h30 - Criminology of mass violence

Chair : Caroline Fournet (Gröningen University, Netherland)

• Jon Shute (University of Manchester, GB)
• Kjell Anderson (The Hague Institute for Global Justice, Netherland)

11h00-12h30 - Secondary mass grave

Chair : Michel Signoli (CNRS-Aix Marseille Université, France)

• José Lopez Mazz (Universidad de Montevideo, Uruguay)
• Sari Wastell (Goldsmith College, GB) & Admir Jugo (International Commission for Missing Persons, Bosnia).

14h00-15h30 - Mass cremation

Chair : Robert Jan Van Pelt (University of Waterloo, Canada)

• Elena Zhemkova (Memorial, Russia)
• Elissa Mailänder (Siences Po Paris, France)

16h30-18h30 - Projection & round table

Organized in collaboration with the CNRS eschare-unit ADES (Anthropologie bio-culturelle, Droit, Éthique & Santé).

Projection of «Las Manos en la Tierra», 52’ documentary film (2010) by Virginia Martínez devoted to the role of the forensic anthropologists in Uruguay in the search for the desaparecidos of military dictatorship (1973-85).

Projection followed by a round table with:

• José Lopez-Mazz (Universidad de Mondevideo, Uruguay)
  
• Michel Signoli (CNRS, France)
  
• Sévane Garibian (Université de Genève, Suisse)
  
• Elisabeth Anstett (CNRS, France)
  
• Francisco Etxeberria (Universidad del País Vasco, Spain - to be confirmed)

14th September 2012

9h00-10h30 - Governing the dead

Chair: Finn Stepputat (DIIS, Denmark)

• Chowra Makaremi (CNRS, France)
• Max Bergholz (University of Concordia, Canada)

11h00-12h30 - Disposal

Chair : Marcia Esparza (John Jay College of Criminal Justice - CUNY, USA)

• Therkel Straede (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
• Nicky Rousseau (University of the Western Cape, South Africa)

14h00-16h00 - Concealment

Chair : Sévane Garibian (Université de Genève, Switzerland)

• Mario Ranalletti & Esteban Pontoriero (UNTREF, Argentina)
• Raymond Kevorkian (Université Paris-VIII-Saint-Denis, France)
• Adrian Cioflanca (Romanian Academy, Romania)

16h30-17h30 - Conclusion by Robert Jan Van Pelt (University of Waterloo, Canada).

 

Organisers

• Elisabeth Anstett (CNRS, France) and
• Jean-Marc Dreyfus (University of Manchester, United Kingdom)

For further informations : info@corpsesofmassviolence.eu