Biorecuperation, the epidemic of violence and Covid-19 in Mexico

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4531383
AutoresArely Cruz-Santiago (0000-0002-0397-5212, University of Exeter), E Schwartz-Marin (0000-0002-1147-7061, University of Exeter)
Ano2021
Volume7
Fascículo2
Páginas64-84
Data de publicação2021-11-25
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoHuman Remains and Violence An Interdisciplinary Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2054-2240 • E-ISSN: 2054-2240
EditoraManchester University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.7227/hrv.7.2.5
OpenAlexW4312686259
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas10

COVID-19 has reinstated the sovereign enclosures of corpse management that mothers of the disappeared had so successfully challenged in the past decade. To explore how moral duties toward the dead are being renegotiated due to COVID-19, this article puts forward the notion of biorecuperation, understood as an individualised form of forensic care for the dead made possible by the recovery of biological material. Public health imperatives that forbid direct contact with corpses due to the pandemic, interrupt the logics of biorecuperation. Our analysis is based on ten years of experience working with families of the disappeared in Mexico, ethnographic research within Mexico's forensic science system and online interviews conducted with medics and forensic scientists working at the forefront of Mexico City's pandemic. In the face of increasing risks of viral contagion and death, this article analyses old and new techniques designed to bypass the prohibitions imposed by the state and its monopoly over corpse management and identification

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Criminology · Disease · Economics · Ethnography · Monopoly · Pandemic · Pathology · Political science · Public health · Social science · Sociology · Global Security and Public Health · History · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Virology