Universität Wien
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240522 SE Violence and (dead) bodies. Experiences from (post)conflict scenarios (P4) (2022S)

Continuous assessment of course work

Participation at first session is obligatory!

The lecturer can invite students to a grade-relevant discussion about partial achievements. Partial achievements that are obtained by fraud or plagiarized result in the non-evaluation of the course (entry 'X' in certificate). The plagiarism software 'Turnitin' will be used for courses with continuous assessment.

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 20 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

If possible, the course is to be conducted in presence. Due to the respective applicable distance regulations and other measures, adjustments may be made.

  • Monday 28.03. 16:45 - 20:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Monday 04.04. 16:45 - 20:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Monday 25.04. 16:45 - 20:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Monday 02.05. 16:45 - 20:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Monday 09.05. 16:45 - 20:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Monday 23.05. 16:45 - 20:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock
  • Monday 30.05. 16:45 - 20:00 Hörsaal C, NIG 4. Stock

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This course aims at addressing how the body is handled and known in contexts of violence and (post)conflict. We will attend to the varied scenarios in which knowledge practices regarding dead bodies play a role in law enforcement, but also in memory and reconciliation exercises, as well as the very definitions of victims and perpetrators.

To do this, we will study citizen, humanitarian and judicial practices and understandings of death bodies that have taken place in various geographies and historical moments (for example, Bosnia-Herzegovina, South Africa, Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia) in contexts of mass violence and armed conflict.

The main objective of this course is to critically approach the production knowledge regarding dead and death bodies and its effects for societies in (post) violent conflict scenarios.

Method:
The course is intended as a space for debate that arises from the careful reading of the material required for each week. Each session consists of a). Discussion of the literature, b). Presentation of a case study, c). class exercises. To enhance discussions, students are to present the literature meant for each session.

Students will submit two (2) essays on the literature discussed.

Likewise, each student must handout an individually selected empirical paper on the topic of the SE.

Assessment and permitted materials

For a positive completion of the seminar, the students must provide the following partial achievements:
• Text reading, active participation in discussions and written answers to text comprehension questions via Moodle: 20 points
• Two (2) written examinations. One at the middle of the semester (deadline mid-term paper: May 2nd, 2022), one at the end (deadline: June 6th, 2022). In the essays, students develop and argument and must engage and discuss with the literature discussed during the course (at least 3 references): 20 points each.
• Individually selected empirical paper on the topic of the SE course: 20 points.
• Group presentation of the literature will be assessed, and it will correspond to the 20 points.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

The course will be taught in English and examinations will also be in English.
Students are expected to have read all the texts to be discussed in the course before the respective session. The reading of English-language texts is a prerequisite.

Prerequisites for a positive completion of the course are:
• Thorough reading of the literature
• Comprehensive presentation of the literature (in groups)
• Active and continuous participation during the sessions
• Participation in discussions and group work
• Punctual submission of the written work
1 (sehr gut) > 100-89 points
2 (gut) > 88-76 points
3 (befriedigend) > 75-63 Punkte
4 (genügend) > 62-50 points
5 (nicht genügend) > 49-0 points

Examination topics

Reading list

Session 1 Introduction:

Laketa, S. (2021). (Counter)Terrorism and the Intimate, Conflict and Society, 7(1), 9-25. Retrieved Aug 31, 2021, from https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/conflict-and-society/7/1/arcs070102.xml

Engelke, M. (2019). The Anthropology of Death Revisited. Annual Review of Anthropology, 48(1), 29–44. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102218-011420

Session 2: Politics of identification
Toom, V. (2016) "Whose body is it? Technolegal materialization of victims’ bodies and remains after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks." Science, Technology, & Human Values 41, no. 4: 686-708.

Rousseau, N. (2015). Identification, politics, disciplines: missing persons and colonial skeletons in South Africa. Human Remains and Identification: Mass Violence, Genocide, and the ‘Forensic Turn, 175-202.

Anstett, É., & Dreyfus, J. M. (2017). Introduction: Why exhume? Why identify?. In Human remains and identification. Manchester University Press.

Session 3: Gender and death
Sørensen, N. N. (2020). Governing through the mutilated female body: Corpse, bodypolitics and contestation in contemporary Guatemala. In Governing the dead. Manchester University Press.

Bjarnegård, E., Melander, E., Bardall, G., Brounéus, K., Forsberg, E. et al. (2015) Gender, peace and armed conflict. In: Ian Davis (ed.), SIPRI Yearbook 2015: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (pp. 101-109). Oxford: Oxford University Press

Session 4: Death and Law enforcement
Kruse, C. (2012). Legal storytelling in pre-trial investigations: Arguing for a wider perspective on forensic evidence. New Genetics and Society, 31(3), 299-309.

M’charek, A., Hagendijk, R., & Vries, W. D. (2013). Equal before the law: On the machinery of sameness in forensic DNA practice. Science, technology, & human values, 38(4), 542-565.

Session 5: Bodies and the politics of commemoration
Baby, S., Nérard, F. X., & Ferguson, C. (2017). Objects from the missing. Exhumations and uses of the material traces of mass violence. Les Cahiers Sirice, (2), 5-20.

Moon, C. (2006). Narrating political reconciliation: Truth and reconciliation in South Africa. Social & Legal Studies, 15(2), 257-275.

Ferrándiz, F. 2013. Exhuming the defeated: Civil War mass graves in 21st-century Spain. American Ethnologist 40 (1): 38-54

Session 6: Forensic deaths and DNA
Bennett, C. (2014). Who knows who we are? Questioning DNA analysis in disaster victim identification. New Genetics and Society, 33(3), 239-256.

Smith, L. A., & García-Deister, V. (2017). Capturing Los Migrantes Desaparecidos: Crisis, unknowability, and the making of the missing. Perspectives on Science, 25(5), 680-697.

Session 7: Enforced disappearance and the absence of the body

Gatti, G. (2020). The social disappeared: Genealogy, global circulations, and (possible) uses of a category for the bad life. Public Culture, 32(1), 25-43.

Irazuzta, I. (2020). Social Disappearance: Notes from the Experience of Migration in Transit through Mexico. In Schnidel and Gatti (2020) Social Disappearance Explorations Between Latin America and Eastern Europe. Berlin: Forum Transregionale Studien.

Gatti, G., & Blanes, J. P. (2020). The leftovers. The dead in life and social disappearance. Death Studies, 44(11), 681-689.

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Mo 14.03.2022 08:48