When
Thursday, October 14, 20212:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
Title: Forensic Citizenship Among Families of Missing Migrants Along the U.S.-Mexico Border
Abstract: Since the mid-1990s, US federal policy has funneled unauthorized migration through remote portions of the Sonoran Desert, resulting in thousands of deaths and disappearances. A growing body of literature on the work to find, care for, and identify those who have died at international borders largely focuses on forensic authorities or humanitarian volunteers. Often left out of such analyses are the families of the missing and dead, who I argue are some of the most critical actors in such work. Drawing on fieldwork done between 2006 and 2021, I discuss how families of missing migrants impact forensic procedures on the US-Mexico border. They do this through the development of knowledge, skills, and relationships with NGOs and government-employed forensic authorities. I argue that families of missing migrants are engaged in active citizenship that builds relationships of care and obligation among and between themselves, forensic scientists, and the missing and dead.
Bio: Robin Reineke is a sociocultural anthropologist with specializations in transnational migration, science and technology studies, human rights, forensic anthropology, and biopolitics. Her research and fieldwork are focused on the US-Mexico border region, especially the Sonoran Desert. Her research has investigated the impact of border deaths and disappearances on immigrant communities, and the ways in which families of missing migrants have changed the practice of forensic science in the US-Mexico borderlands. From 2006 – 2020, she worked closely with the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, and then co-founded the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, which she directed from 2013 – 2019. Dr. Reineke is Assistant Research Social Scientist at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Center. She is a 2021 Confluence Center Faculty Fellow. She was awarded the Institute for Policy Studies’ Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award and Echoing Green’s Global Fellowship both in 2014.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
For more information, contact: Dr. Linda Green (lbgreen@arizona.edu)or Catherine Lehman (cml@arizona.edu)