The forensic trace: a hauntology of evidence

What kind of specters haunt the forensic investigation of human remains and how are they channeled and directed by forensic practitioners and others? What might the materially grounded practice of forensic inquiry offer to an understanding of Jacques Derrida’s hauntology and its potential? In this presentation I consider the material signs of forensic anthropology as located at the intersection of semiotic approaches articulated by Derrida and Charles S. Peirce, suggesting that forensic evidence both points to the limitations of hauntology as imagined by Derrida while also demonstrating its continuing relevance. 

Bio: 

Zoe Crossland’s research deals with the historical archaeology of Madagascar, and with evidential practices around human remains. Her approach to historical inquiry is informed by Peircean "semeiotics," which she uses to explore the imbrication of the material and the immaterial, the human and the nonhuman. The research Crossland has undertaken in Madagascar has been concerned with archaeologies of encounter, including a consideration of how material traces in the landscape made the dead present as historical actors (2014). She is now working with colleagues Chantal Radilmilahay, Bako Rasoarifetra and Rafolo Andrianaivoarivony on the history of irrigated riziculture in the highlands, with a particular focus on the constitution of sovereignty through and with the partnership of rice plants, paddy fields and irrigation structures. In her work on forensic evidence and the archaeological production of the dead body, Crossland considers the work of inference and practical activity by which archaeology conjures and evaluates competing claims about the past. She is presently working on a book, The Speaking Corpse, which teases out the different evidential relations through which the forensic corpse presents itself as witness. She does this by attending to the ways in which the evidence of the dead is explained and delineated for popular consumption by forensic anthropologists.

The forensic trace: a hauntology of evidence
Date
Wed April 7th 2021, 12:00 - 1:00pm
Location
Zoom
Event Sponsor
Archaeology Center
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