The Politics of Death: An Anthropological Excavation of Political Ascension Through the Strategic Manipulation of Post-Mortem Bodies as Objects to be Used, Misuse and Abuse – and the Historic Ghost we’ve Inherited, Materially and Immaterially

Summary

Three kinds of post-mortem manipulations occur for three distinct reasons. They are connected by the need for authoritative power and the desire to be seen as strong. Selfish notions of self-preservation are manifested through governmental bodies in the name of freedom and evolution. The three kinds of post-mortem configuration can be categorized like this: (A) political ascension; (B) national or geographic control and domination; (C) reactive exclamations, usually performed by the powerless and the oppressed. I will excavate the historic realities of similar political occurrences and their strategic engineering of death and the bodies of the dead. The examples are: (1) the death of Caesar, 44 A.D.; (2) the deaths of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, 1979, and Shanawaz Bhutto, 1985; (3) the deaths of Che Guevara, 1967; Maurice Bishop, 1983; Bin Laden, 2011 (4) the deaths of 9/11 victims at ground zero, 2001 (5) the deaths of military service officers: Black Hawk Down, 1993 & Iranian hostage crisis, 1980 and the Russian pilots in Syria, 2015. Focus will be placed on the deaths themselves, the manipulated funeral arrangements by the State apparatus, the demagogic eulogies, and the political aftermath—the post-mortem body is a symbol to be used, misused, and abused.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Manipulated Bodies: Investigating Postmortem Interactions with Human Remains

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14367