THE MASS GRAVE SCOPING PROJECT: REMEMBERING AND RECORDING MEMORIES OF SILENCED MASSACRES, A CASE IN NORTHERN UGANDA1

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-13
Author(s):  
Okot Komakech Deo
Keyword(s):  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Forensic Evidence ◽  
Mass Grave ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
Missing Persons ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Memory Support ◽  
Mass Killings ◽  
Potential Use

Abstract Drawing upon the experience of assembling a database that records events of mass killings in northern Uganda, this piece highlights impressions of ethnographic research exploring the potential use of forensic science to mitigate anxiety related to mass graves and missing persons. The existence of mass graves in communities and large numbers of missing persons is a new phenomenon to the Acholi people and one that lacks documentation. The assemblage of memory support by forensic evidence is a way to enforce true narratives of past atrocities.

scholarly journals Towards mass-grave protection guidelines

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Klinkner
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Right To Know ◽  
Mass Grave ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
Legal Obligations ◽  
Legal Guidelines ◽  
Practical Agenda

In the aftermath of conflict and gross human rights violations, victims have a right to know what happened to their loved ones. Such a right is compromised if mass graves are not adequately protected to preserve evidence, facilitate identification and repatriation of the dead and enable a full and effective investigation to be conducted. Despite guidelines for investigations of the missing, and legal obligations under international law, it is not expressly clear how these mass graves are best legally protected and by whom. This article asks why, to date, there are no unified mass-grave protection guidelines that could serve as a model for states, authorities or international bodies when faced with gross human rights violations or armed conflicts resulting in mass graves. The paper suggests a practical agenda for working towards a more comprehensive set of legal guidelines to protect mass graves.

Working for the Living and the Dead

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soren Blau
Keyword(s):  
Forensic Science ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Human Identification ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Personal Identification ◽  
The Political ◽  
Missing Persons ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
The Dead

Forensic science and medicine play a critical role in human identification, with the underlying premise being that ‘the truth’ can be empirically and objectively obtained. This chapter explores some of the approaches to exhumation and identification undertaken in Timor-Leste and discusses some of the complexities associated with scientific reason and the notion of the construction of ‘forensic truth’. The difficulty of establishing personal identification from skeletal remains in Timor-Leste is discussed in the context of large numbers of missing persons, the fact that atrocities took place in multiple locations over a 24-year period, and the fact that there is limited local forensic capacity. In addition, the ways in which the process of identification is understood is discussed in light of different notions of ‘truth’, highlighting the political, social, and ethical complexities at play.

scholarly journals Unrecovered objects: Narratives of dispossession, slow violence and survival in the investigation of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 428-446
Author(s):  
Layla Renshaw
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Mass Grave ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Slow Violence ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact

The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was triggered by a military uprising against the democratically elected Popular Front government. Away from the battlefield, this war was characterized by the politically-motivated murder of thousands of civilians, many of whom were buried in clandestine graves throughout Spain. Following Franco’s victory and subsequent dictatorship, there were strong prohibitions on commemorating the Republican dead. A radical rupture in Spain’s memory politics occurred from 2000 onwards with the founding of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory and other similar pressure groups that have organized the exhumation and reburial of the Republican dead. This article is based on fieldwork conducted in communities in Castile and León, and Extremadura as they underwent mass grave investigations. It examines the experience of theft and dispossession that occurred as part of the Francoist repression of Republicans. Accounts of these episodes focus on stolen and looted objects robbed from the dead during the killings, from the graves’ post-mortem, or from surviving relatives as part of the systematic dispossession of Republican households that occurred during the war and immediate post-war period. These narratives surface with frequency during the investigation and exhumation of mass graves. Despite the fact that many are lost forever, these stolen possessions can function as powerful mnemonic objects with a strong affective and imaginative hold. The narratives of dispossession explore themes of survival, the experiences of women and children, and the impact of slow violence. By invoking theft and stolen objects, these stories highlight forms of trauma and forms of memory that may not be represented fully by the dominant investigative paradigm of the mass grave exhumation with its inherent focus on death, cataclysmic violence and the tangible, physical traces of the past.

A vernalization-intensity model to predict bolting in sugar beet

2009 ◽  
Vol 148 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. F. J. MILFORD ◽  
P. J. JARVIS ◽  
C. WALTERS
Keyword(s):  
Sugar Beet ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Trial Data ◽  
Vernalization Requirement ◽  
New Model ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Maximum Air Temperature ◽  
Potential Use

SUMMARYA new model is presented that relates the numbers of bolters in sugar-beet crops to an intensity of vernalization calculated as the accumulated number of hours between sowing and the end of June that temperatures were between 0 and 13°C, with each temperature within this range differentially weighted for its vernalizing effect. The model allows varieties to be characterized in terms of a threshold number of vernalizing hours needed to induce bolting (the vernalization requirement) and the increase in the proportion of bolted plants with each additional 10 vernalizing hours accumulated above this vernalizing threshold (the bolting sensitivity). When parameterized for variety, the model allows the level of bolting to be predicted for crops sown on specific dates in particular locations.Data from variety-assessment trials done at a wide range of locations throughout the main UK sugar-beet growing areas between 1973 and 2006, and from early sown bolting trials done at a few sites between 2000 and 2008, were used to define specific aspects of the model. These included the range and weightings of vernalizing temperatures, the period during which vernalization occurs, and the temperatures likely to cause plants to become devernalized.The vernalization-intensity bolting model was parameterized and validated using separate subsets of the UK variety-assessment trial data. It was shown to be more discriminating and robust than an existing ‘cool-day’ model, which relates bolting to the number of days from sowing in which the maximum air temperature was below 12°C. Examples are given of the use of the new model to assess the bolting risk associated with early sowing in different regions of the UK, to interpret recent patterns of bolting (especially the large numbers of bolters seen in some commercial crops in 2008), and its potential use as an advisory tool.

scholarly journals Seeing like a scientist: subjunctive forensics and shared ways of seeing in the Spanish forensic archive

2021 ◽  
pp. 143-165
Author(s):  
Lee Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Mass Grave ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Contemporary Spain ◽  
Shed Light

For two decades, Spaniards have turned to forensic science as a mode of unearthing diverse forms of evidence that shed light on the mechanics of fascist repression that emerged during the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship that followed it. Due to the lasting effects of Spain’s Amnesty Law, which prohibits defining Franco’s victims as victims of crime, these exhumation projects exist at the unruly boundaries of legal procedure. In the absence of courts equipped to manage the evidence exhumed and produced in these endeavors, photographs documenting the forensic process are not sequestered by the law. Instead, they are made to be seen. Drawing on what the author describes as subjunctive forensics, she analyzes the emergence of new bodies of knowledge —or what could be called the forensic archive— in order to understand how visual evidence that straddles the scientific and the political, particularly photography, is produced, circulated and safe-guarded in contemporary Spain. Drawing on ethnographic research and the experience of photographing mass grave exhumations, the author explores how shared forms of seeing are produced, acquired, and shared among the community of practice surrounding historical memory work. By focusing on how professional and skilled visions are constituted, the article argues that it is in the production, circulation, and display of forensic photography that Spaniards visualize an uncomfortable past while also imagining alternative political futures.

scholarly journals Circular Ceramics of Yaroslavl of the First Half of the XIII Century from Mass Grave Complexes Filling Dated by 1238

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
А.В. ЭНГОВАТОВА ◽  
Е.К. КАДИЕВА
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
Mass Grave ◽  
Mass Graves

В статье представлены результаты анализа керамической коллекции, полученной при раскопках девяти закрытых археологических комплексов – массовых захоронений 1238 г. на территории Ярославля. Установлено, что технологические и морфологические характеристики керамики соответствуют первой трети XIII в. Рассмотренный керамический материал позволил выделить специфические черты ярославской керамики домонгольского времени. The article represents the results of analysis of ceramics collection found during excavation of nine closed archaeological complexes – mass graves of 1238 on the territory of Yaroslavl. It is clear that technological and morphological characteristics of ceramics are typical for the fi rst third of the XIII century. Analysis of ceramics materials allows to defi ne peculiar features of Yaroslavl ceramics in premongolian period.

scholarly journals The valley of the fallen: a new El Escorial for Spain

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Queralt Solé
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Mass Grave ◽  
Franco Regime ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
The Dead ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Location

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Spain has experienced a cycle of exhumations of the mass graves of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and has rediscovered that the largest mass grave of the state is the monument that glorifies the Franco regime: the Valley of the Fallen. Building work in the Sierra de Guadarrama, near Madrid, was begun in 1940 and was not completed until 1958. This article analyses for the first time the regimes wish, from the start of the works, for the construction of the Valley of the Fallen to outdo the monument of El Escorial. At the same time the regime sought to create a new location to sanctify the dictatorship through the vast transfer to its crypts of the remains of the dead of the opposing sides of the war.

scholarly journals The last battle of Anne of Brittany: solving mass grave through an interdisciplinary approach (paleopathology, anthropobiology, history, multiple isotopes and radiocarbon dating)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rozenn Colleter ◽  
Clément Bataille ◽  
Henri Dabernat ◽  
Daniel Pichot ◽  
Philippe Hamon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Companion Paper ◽  
Major Event ◽  
Mass Grave ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
Combined Use ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Isotopic Geochemistry ◽  
King Of France

AbstractMass graves are usually key historical markers with strong incentive for archeological investigations. The identification of individuals buried in mass graves has long benefitted from traditional historical, archaeological, anthropological and paleopathological techniques. The addition of novel methods including genetic, genomic and isotopic geochemistry have renewed interest in solving unidentified mass graves. In this study, we demonstrate that the combined use of these techniques allows the identification of the individuals found in two Breton historical mass graves, where one method alone would not have revealed the importance of this discovery. The skeletons likely belong to soldiers from the two enemy armies who fought during a major event of Breton history: the siege of Rennes in 1491, which ended by the wedding of the Duchess of Brittany with the King of France and signaled the end of the independence of the region. Our study highlights the value of interdisciplinary approaches with a particular emphasis on increasingly accurate isotopic markers. The development of the sulfur isoscape and testing of the triple isotope geographic assignment are detailed in a companion paper [1].

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