Human remains and mass violence HUMAN REMAINS AND VIOLENCE Human remains and mass violence Human remains Human remains and mass violence outlines for the first time in a single volume the theoretical and methodological tools for a study of human and mass violence remains resulting from episodes of mass violence and genocide. Despite the highly innovative and contemporary research into both mass violence Methodological approaches and the body, the most significant consequence of conflict – the corpse – remains absent from the scope of existing research. Edited by JEAN-MARC DREYFUS Why have human remains hitherto remained absent from our investigation, and how do historians, anthropologists and legal scholars, and ÉLISABETH ANSTETT including specialists in criminology and political science, deal with these difficult issues and confront the implications they create? By drawing on international case studies including genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, Argentina, Russia and the context of post-Second World War Europe, this ground-breaking edited collection opens new avenues of research through an exploration of these state-of-the-art analyses. Each innovative chapter strengthens the field of genocide studies by providing proper intellectual and theoretical tools for a better grasp of the legacy of mass violence in today’s societies. Human remains and mass violence shows that, far from being extraneous, each discipline DR is able to contribute to this emerging line of enquiry with its own methodological framework and consequently valuable application. E YFUS and YFUS Multidisciplinary in scope, Human remains and mass violence will appeal to readers interested in an understanding of mass violence’s aftermath, including researchers in history, anthropology, sociology, law, politics and modern warfare. A Jean-Marc Dreyfus is Reader in Holocaust Studies at the University of Manchester NST and a Director of the Corpses of Mass Violence and Genocide programme funded by the European Research Council E Élisabeth Anstett is a Researcher in Social Anthropology at the Centre National de Tt ( la Recherche Scientifique, France, and a Director of the Corpses of Mass Violence and Genocide programme funded by the European Research Council Eds ) ISBN 978-0-7190-9650-1 9 780719 096501 www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk HUMAN REMAINS AND VIOLENCE Cover design: www.riverdesign.co.uk Human remains and mass violence HRMV.indb 1 01/09/2014 17:28:31 HUMAN REMAINS AND VIOLENCE Human remains and violence aims to question the social legacy of mass violence by studying how different societies have coped with the dead bodies resulting from war, genocide and state-sponsored brutality. However, rather paradoxically, given the large volume of work devoted to the body on the one hand, and to mass violence on the other, the question of the body in the context of mass violence remains a largely unexplored area and even an academic blind spot. Interdisciplinary in nature, Human remains and violence intends to show how various social and cultural treatments of the dead body simultaneously challenge common representations, legal prac- tices and morality. This series aims to provide proper intellectual and theoretical tools for a better understanding of mass violence’s aftermaths. Series editors Jean-Marc Dreyfus & Élisabeth Anstett Also available in this series Destruction and human remains: disposal and concealment in genocide and mass violence Edited by Élisabeth Anstett & Jean-Marc Dreyfus Governing the dead: sovereignty and the politics of dead bodies Edited by Finn Stepputat HRMV.indb 2 01/09/2014 17:28:31 Human remains and mass violence Methodological approaches Edited by Jean-Marc Dreyfus & Élisabeth Anstett Manchester University Press HRMV.indb 3 01/09/2014 17:28:32 Copyright © Manchester University Press 2014 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7190 9650 1 hardback ISBN 978 1 5261 1674 1 paperback ISBN 978 1 5261 2502 6 open access First published 2014 This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence. A copy of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset in Minion and Helvetica by R. J. Footring Ltd, Derby Contents List of contributors page vii Acknowledgements xi Introduction. Corpses and mass violence: an inventory of the unthinkable 1 Élisabeth Anstett & Jean-Marc Dreyfus 1 The biopolitics of corpses of mass violence and genocide 12 Yehonatan Alsheh 2 Seeking the dead among the living: embodying the disappeared of the Argentinian dictatorship through law 44 Sévane Garibian 3 The human body: victim, witness and evidence of mass violence 56 Caroline Fournet 4 Moral discourse and action in relation to the corpse: integrative concepts for a criminology of mass violence 81 Jon Shute 5 The disposal of corpses in an ethnicized civil war: Croatia, 1941–45 106 Alexander Korb HRMV.indb 5 01/09/2014 17:28:32 vi Contents 6 Renationalizing bodies? The French search mission for the corpses of deportees in Germany, 1946–58 129 Jean-Marc Dreyfus 7 From bones-as-evidence to tutelary spirits: the status of bodies in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide 146 Anne Yvonne Guillou 8 Display, concealment and ‘culture’: the disposal of bodies in the 1994 Rwandan genocide 161 Nigel Eltringham 9 An anthropological approach to human remains from the gulags 181 Élisabeth Anstett Index 199 HRMV.indb 6 01/09/2014 17:28:32 Contributors Yehonatan Alsheh wrote his doctoral dissertation in the Tel Aviv University School of Historical Studies on the political and intel- lectual origins of the United Nations Genocide Convention. He developed with Professor Yair Auron an Open University under- graduate programme on comparative genocide studies, consisting of 12 textbooks, and the first programme of its kind to appear in Hebrew and to be taught in Israeli academia. So far almost 5,000 students have been on the course, including around 200 Palestinian political prisoners. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, Canada. He has published in Hebrew, English, Spanish and Afrikaans. Élisabeth Anstett has been a social anthropologist and tenured research scholar at the Centre National de la Recherche Scien tifique (CNRS) in Paris since October 2009, and is a member of IRIS (Inter disciplinary Research Institute on Social issues). Her area of expertise covers Europe and the post-socialist world, on which she has published extensively. Her recent works focus on the way post-Soviet societies are dealing with the traces left by the Soviet concentration camp system, among which are mass graves, and more broadly on the legacies of mass violence in eastern Europe, especially in Russia and Belarus. She has published, among other works, Une Atlantide russe: anthropologie de la mémoire en Russie HRMV.indb 7 01/09/2014 17:28:32 viii List of contributors postsoviétique (La Découverte, 2007) and co-edited with Luba Jur- genson Le Goulag en héritage, pour une anthropologie de la trace (Pétra, 2009). Jean-Marc Dreyfus is Reader in Holocaust Studies within the Depart ment of History at the University of Manchester. His research interests include: Holocaust studies; genocide studies and the anthropology of genocide; the history of the Jews in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in France; the economic history of France and Germany; Holocaust memory and the politics of memory; the modern history of Alsace; and the re- building of post-war societies. He is the author of four monographs, including Pillages sur ordonnances: la confiscation des banques juives en France et leur restitution, 1940–1953 (Fayard, 2003); with Sarah Gensburger, Nazi Labour Camps in Paris (Berghahn Books, 2012); and Il m’appelait Pikolo: un compagnon de Primo Levi raconte (He Called Me Pikolo: A Companion of Primo Levi Tells His Story) (Robert Laffont, 2007). He is the co-editor of the Dictionnaire de la Shoah (Dictionary of the Holocaust) (Larousse, 2009). Nigel Eltringham teaches social anthropology at the University of Sussex. He has published extensively on the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and has conducted research in Rwanda, among the Rwandan diaspora in Europe and at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (Arusha Tanzania). He is the author of Accounting for Horror: Post-Genocide Debates in Rwanda (Pluto, 2004), editor of Framing Africa: Portrayals of a Continent in Con- temporary Mainstream Cinema (Berghahn, 2013) and co-editor, with Pam Maclean, of Remembering Genocide (Routledge, 2014). Caroline Fournet is Associate Professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Groningen. She was previously Senior Lecturer at Exeter University’s School of Law. Her main publications include three monographs: International Crimes: Theories, Practice and Evolution, with an Introduction by Professor Malcolm N. Shaw QC (Cameron, 2006); The Crime of Destruction and the Law of Genocide: Their Impact on Collective Memory (Ashgate, 2007); and Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity: Confusions and Amalgams in French Practice (Hart Publishing, 2013), which was awarded a British Academy Small Research Grant for its comple- tion. Her current research includes several comparative works on HRMV.indb 8 01/09/2014 17:28:32 List of contributors ix international criminal law and justice as well as on human rights law.