The Danger in Dehumanizing the Dead

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Interactions with Pseudoarchaeology: Approaches to the Use of Social Media and the Internet for Correcting Misconceptions of Archaeology in Virtual Spaces" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The various undead or reanimated humans in world folklore (e.g., zombies, vampires) are examples of using supernatural explanations to account for misunderstood or inconceivable phenomena found in the natural world. Such creatures and what they represent are used as analogies even in the present day by scientists, the news media, and popular culture for the same purpose. But audiences may not read the comparisons as intended (illustrations for clarification) and rather see the explanations of monsters as actual equivalencies. This becomes problematic when a news report speaks of ‘vampire burial’ or a ‘zombie skeleton’ and reinforces the popular belief that maybe corpses can walk again. The sensational or exaggerated reports on burials that seem to deviant from the norm have the unintended consequence of reinforcing stereotypes and misconceptions about the living. Movies and comics that depict these monsters throughout history with great verisimilitude strip away the diversity of modern populations. Although the goal of the authors may have been to employ folklore to help audiences better conceptualize their stories (real or not), the result is often a reification of oversimplified and even dangerous ideas about modern people.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Interactions with Pseudoarchaeology: Approaches to the Use of Social Media and the Internet for Correcting Misconceptions of Archaeology in Virtual Spaces

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25511