This event is free, but places must be booked in advance through Eventbrite.

When asked why exhumations of mass graves were important for human rights investigations, the late, great Dr Clyde Snow famously said, “The bones don’t lie.” From Argentina to Guatemala, Iraq to Sri Lanka, Mexico to Congo, and many other corners of the world, Dr Snow investigated massive human rights violations and trained a new generation of human rights investigators.  In the process, he built a new role for anthropology and anthropologists to investigate and document human rights violations for legal processes in truth commissions and courts as well as for the production of historical memory for society and reclaiming of historical subjectivity for victims and survivors.  Drawing on 25 years of experience investigating human rights violations and genocide in Guatemala, Prof Stanford will discuss the theory and practice of forensic exhumations, victim identification, archival and testimonial research and their interplay in legal processes and community desires for justice.  She will explore the ways in which science, law and justice complement and collide with one another as investigations move forward from the field to legal courts and the court of public opinion.  She will consider the role of the researcher as both documentarian and participant in the production of history as well as legal precedence

Delivered in partnership with Peace and Conflict Studies Anthropology Network (PACSA/EASA), this is one of 2 public keynote lectures as part of the PACSA 2019 conference entitled ‘Creativity, Resistance and Hope: Towards an Anthropology of Peace’.  The conference will take place 3 to 5 October 2019.  The programme consists of 9 panels with 52 papers in total, as well as 2 keynote lectures, 2 performances, a filmscreening, a workshop and a guided walking tour. 

Register for the full conference here.  Please note there is a registration fee of 60 Euro plus an extra 12 Euro for the walking tour.