This volume brings forensic and cultural anthropology closer together through case studies of structural violence and power. Paying attention to how death further marginalizes minoritized populations, this volume goes beyond conventional forensic anthropology and sheds light on the field’s potential to address social injustice.

This volume bridges the gap between forensic and cultural anthropology in how both disciplines describe and theorize the dead, highlighting the potential for interdisciplinary scholarship. As applied disciplines dealing with some of the most marginalized people in our society, forensic anthropologists have the potential to shed light on important and persistent social issues that we face today. Forensic anthropologists have successfully pursued research agendas primarily focused on the development of individual biological profiles, time since death, recovery, and identification. Few, however, have taken a step back from their lab bench to consider how and why people become forensic cases or place their work in a larger theoretical context. Thus, this volume challenges forensic anthropologists to reflect how we can use our toolkit and databases to address larger social issues and quandaries that we face in a world where some are spared from becoming forensic anthropology cases and others are not. As witnesses to violence, crimes against humanity, and the embodied consequences of structural violence, we have the opportunity—and arguably, the responsibility—to transcend the traditional medico-legal confines of our small sub-discipline, by synthesizing forensic anthropology casework into theoretically grounded social science with potentially transformative impacts at a global scale.

Foreword by Zoë Crossland

Acknowledgments

Introduction by Jennifer F. Byrnes and Iván Sandoval-Cervantes

Part I: At the Border: International and Domestic Efforts Towards Identification

Chapter 1: Oral Pathologies as a Reflection of Structural Violence and Stigma Among Undocumented Migrants from Mexico and Central America by Angela Soler, Jared S. Beatrice, and Daniel E. Martínez

Chapter 2: Forgotten Spaces: The Structural Disappearance of Migrants in South Texas by Molly A. Kaplan, Courtney C. Siegert, Mariah E. Moe, Chloe P. McDaneld, and M. Kate Spradley

Chapter 3: Qué pena con usted: The Struggle for Victim Identification in Colombia by Elizabeth A. DiGangi and Daniela Santamaria Vargas

Chapter 4: Devaluing the Dead: The Role of Stigma in Medicolegal Death Investigations of Long-Term Missing and Unidentified Persons in the United States by Cate E. Bird and Jason D. P. Bird

Part II: At the Intersection: Social Identities and Forensic Anthropology

Chapter 5: Theorizing Social Marginalization for Forensic Anthropology: Insights from Medical Anthropology and Social Epidemiology by Allysha P. Winburn, Meredith G. Marten, Taylor Walkup, Enrique Plasencia, and Allison Hutson

Chapter 6: Disability, Disaster, Demography, and the Camp Fire Fatalities by Samuel Mijal and P. Willey

Chapter 7: Gender Identities and Intersectional Violence Within Forensic Anthropology by Jaxson D. Haug

Chapter 8: Marginalization, Death, and Decline: The Role of Forensic Anthropology in Documenting the Osteology of Poverty and Evidence of Structural Violence in Detroit, Michigan in the 21st Century by Megan K. Moore and Jaymelee J. Kim

Chapter 9: A Social Autopsy of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi: Forensic Anthropology Case Files as an Archive of Marginalization by Jennifer F. Byrnes, William R. Belcher, and Katharine C. Woollen

Chapter 10: Identification of the Korean War Dead: Family Reference Samples at the Intersection of Race, Class, and Structural Vulnerability by Briana T. New, Paulina Domínguez Acosta, Janet E. Finlayson, Amanda N. Friend, Matthew C. Go, Amanda Hale, Sadé J. Johnson, Devin N. Williams, Jennie Jin

Chapter 11: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on the Role of Marginalization in the Identification of Opioid Users in Medicolegal Investigations by Janna M. Andronowski and Randi M. Depp