Absent and present: Biopolitics and the materiality of body counts on the US–Mexico border

As the deaths of undocumented migrants expose the violence of border security policies around the globe, a complicated politics emerges between bodily death and the ways in which the migrant association of decedents (dis)appears in vital records – even as many migrants physically disappear during th...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. VerfasserIn: Soto, Gabriella (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
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Veröffentlicht: Sage Publ. 2021
In: Journal of material culture
Jahr: 2021, Band: 26, Heft: 1, Seiten: 43-63
normierte Schlagwort(-folgen):B USA / Mexiko / Grenze / Illegale Einwanderung / Tod / Statistik
RelBib Classification:KBQ Nordamerika
ZA Sozialwissenschaften
ZB Soziologie
ZC Politik
weitere Schlagwörter:B Materiality
B Migration
B US–Mexico border
B Biopolitics
B forensic evidence
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Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:As the deaths of undocumented migrants expose the violence of border security policies around the globe, a complicated politics emerges between bodily death and the ways in which the migrant association of decedents (dis)appears in vital records – even as many migrants physically disappear during their border crossings. What happens between death and bureaucratic disappearance after a migrant body is discovered? How does the overwhelming material presence of migrant death, someone who dies through an unnecessary and excruciating process like drowning or dehydration during a border crossing, become not-a-migrant? This article considers these questions by exploring the materiality of body counts at the nexus of biopolitics, forensic anthropology, and material culture studies. To probe the process behind migrants’ seemingly systematized bureaucratic postmortem disappearance, this ethnographic case study of local postmortem investigations of migrant deaths at the US–Mexico border examines practices around burial or cremation and body discovery.
ISSN:1460-3586
Enthält:Enthalten in: Journal of material culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/1359183520959397