Robin C. Reineke
Southwest Center, Little Chapel of All Nations, 1052 N. Highland Ave, Tucson, AZ 85721-0185
About Robin Reineke
Robin Reineke is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research explores social and political responses to deaths and disappearances. She focuses especially on forensic responses, and has conducted ethnographic research and forensic anthropological practice in the US-Mexico borderlands for over fifteen years.
From 2006 – 2020, she spent significant time working with the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, doing ethnographic research and forensic anthropological practice to address unidentified human remains and missing persons in the borderlands. These initiatives included the development of the nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, which she co-founded and directed from 2013 – 2019.
Dr. Reineke is currently working on her first book, With the Dead, For the Living: Forensic Care in the US-Mexico Borderlands, which is an ethnography about forensic human identification in southern Arizona. Together with Dr. Natalia Mendoza Rockwell, Dr. Reineke is currently working on a binational research project, Forensic Citizenship in the Borderlands, which is a visual, oral history, and ethnographic project is focused on understanding civilian forensic expertise and critical practice on both sides of the Arizona-Sonora border.
Dr. Reineke is Assistant Research Social Scientist at the Southwest Center and Assistant Professor in the School of Anthropology, both at the University of Arizona.
Selected Publications
Refereed Journal Articles
2023 “Towards a forensic anthropology of structural vulnerability.” Forensic Science International: Synergy. Vol. 6 (January):https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2023.100332. (Robin C. Reineke, Angela Soler, Jared S. Beatrice.)
2022 Natural deaths in extraordinary times: Governing COVID dead in southern Arizona. Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 8 (1): 67–83. https://doi.org/10.7227/HRV.8.1.5. (Robin C. Reineke).
2022 Forensic Citizenship among Families of Missing Migrants along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Citizenship Studies 0 (0): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2021.2018675.
2021 Two Decades of Death and Disappearance along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Hot Spots, Fieldsights, October 19. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/two-decades-of-death-and-disappearance-a.... Reineke, Robin C.
2021 Skeletal evidence of structural violence among undocumented migrants from Mexico and Central America. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. August. 1-22. (Jared S. Beatrice, Angela Soler, Robin C. Reineke, Daniel E. Martínez).
2021 Ambiguous Loss and Embodied Grief Related to Mexican Migrant Disappearances. Medical Anthropology 0 (0): 1–14. (Rebecca M. Crocker, Robin C. Reineke, and María Elena Ramos Tovar).
2017 Hughes, Cris., Bridgett Algee-Hewitt, Robin Reineke, Elizabeth Clausing and Bruce Anderson, Temporal Patterns of Mexican Migrant Genetic Ancestry: Implications for Identification. American Anthropologist, 119: 193–208.
2014 Martinez, Daniel and Robin Reineke. “Structural Violence and Migrant Deaths in Southern Arizona: Data from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2013.” Journal of Migration and Human Security. JMHS Volume 2 Number 4 (2014): 257-286.
Chapters in Books and Monographs
2023 Migration, Death, and Disappearance: Education and Engagement in Tucson, Arizona. In Migration, Displacement, and Higher Education: Now What? Edited by Brittany Murray, Matthew Brill-Carlat, and Maria Höhn. Palgrave Macmillan. (Bruce E. Anderson and Robin C. Reineke).
2019 Reineke, Robin. “Necroviolence and Postmortem Care Along the U.S.-Mexico Border,” in The Border and Its Bodies, edited by Thomas Sheridan and Randall McGuire, University of Arizona Press, forthcoming Fall 2019.
2018 Reineke, Robin. Foreword. In Sociopolitics of Migrant Death and Repatriation: Perspectives from Forensic Science, edited by Krista E. Latham and Alyson O’Daniel. Bioarchaeology and Social Theory Series, Springer International
2016 Reineke, Robin and Bruce E. Anderson. Missing in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. In Missing Persons: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Disappeared, edited by Derek Congram. Canadian Scholars’ Press.
2016 Reineke, Robin. Los Desaparecidos de la frontera: The missing of the border. In: R Rubio-Goldsmith, C Fernández, J Finch, and A Masterson-Algar (eds) Migrant Deaths in the Arizona Desert: La vida no vale nada (Life is Worthless). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Other Publications
2019 Reineke, Robin. “Artifact: Unnamed Fishing Vessel.” Borderlore Magazine, Southwest Folklife Alliance. https://www.southwestfolklife.org/artifact-an-unnamed-fishing-vessel/. June 2019.
2016 Reineke, Robin. Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains at the United States–Mexico Border. In Fatal Journeys 2: Identification and Tracing of Dead and Missing Migrants. International Organization for Migration (IOM).
2014 Reineke, Robin and Daniel Martinez. “Migrant deaths in the Americas.” In Fatal Journeys: Tracking Lives Lost During Migration, edited by the International Organization for Migration.
2013 Reineke, Robin. “Lost in the System: Unidentified Bodies on the Border.” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) Report on the Americas, Summer 2013. https://nacla.org/article/lost-system-unidentified-bodies-border
2013 Martinez, Daniel and Robin Reineke. “Undocumented Border Crosser Deaths in Southern Arizona.” Border Criminologies, June 22 2013. http://bordercriminologies.law.ox.ac.uk/tag/robin-reineke
2013 Martinez, Daniel and Robin Reineke. “New Report Shows that Migrant Deaths Remain High in Arizona.” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) Border Wars Blog, June 5, 2013. http://nacla.org/blog/2013/6/4/new-report-shows-migrant-deaths-remain-high-arizona
2013 Martinez, Daniel, Robin Reineke, Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, Bruce E. Anderson, Gregory L. Hess, Bruce O. Parks, A Continued Humanitarian Crisis at the Border: Undocumented Border Crosser Deaths Recorded by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990 – 2012. Report Published by the Binational Migration Institute, June. http://bmi.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/border_deaths_final_web.pdf
Selected Media and News Appearances
CNN, "'No Olvidado': These Americans find and bury missing migrants." https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/12/us/no-olvidado-missing-migrants-border/
New York Times, “They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/arts/design/new-york-academy-of-art-arizona-border.html. March 2, 2018.
CNN, United Shades of America with Kamau Bell, https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/27/opinions/united-shades-america-border-us-mexico-kamau-bell-opinion/index.html. May 28, 2018.
Washington Post, “Search for missing migrants: Families hope DNA will guide them to lost loved ones.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/search-for-the-missing-immigrants-hope-dna-will-guide-them-to-lost-loved-ones/2017/12/11/2b278f0a-d933-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html. December 11, 2017.
Reveal News, “The deadliest route to the American dream.” https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-deadliest-route-to-the-american-dream/. March 3, 2017.
Los Angeles Times, “In Arizona, Border Patrol doesn’t include dozens of deaths in tally of migrants who perish.” http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-border-patrol-count-20161128-story.html. December 15, 2016.
NBC News, “Finding Missing Migrants, or Their Remains, is Grim Border Work.” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/missing-migrants-n405326. August 18, 2015.
The Independent, “Finding Names for America’s Shame.” https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/finding-the-names-for-america-s-shame-what-happens-to-the-immigrants-crossing-the-us-mexico-border-9629774.html. July 25, 2014.
BBC News, Missing Migrants: The Documentary. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01v5sq8. March 17, 2014.
Documentary Film, “Who is Dayani Cristal?” http://www.whoisdayanicristal.com/, Directed by Marc Silver, feature-length documentary film distributed by Kino Lorber, February 2014.
ABC News, Nightline, “Tracing the Human Cost of Immigration.” January 3, 2014.
New York Times, “Bodies on the Border,” Op-Doc by Marc Silver, August 17, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/opinion/bodies-on-the-border.html
Arizona Daily Star, “Discoveries of crossers’ bodies now at lowest level in 10 years.” Perla Treviso, February 21, 2013. http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/discoveries-of-crossers-bodies-now-at-lowest-level-in-years/article_203b9754-ecde-5bd9-a98c-c63f61b0a8d1.html
Public Radio International’s The World, “Identifying the Migrants Who Die Crossing the US/Mexico Border.” http://www.theworld.org/2013/01/identifying-migrants-mexico-border/. January 24, 2013.
BBC World Service, Outlook Program, Naming the Dead on the Mexican Border, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p011ylt4. December 24, 2012.
Los Angeles Times, “Arizona county's grim lost and found.” http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/17/nation/la-na-migrant-possessions-20121017, October 17, 2012.
National Public Radio’s State of the Reunion, “Tucson: Borderlands,” http://stateofthereunion.com/home/season-3/tucson-az.September 17, 2012.
Arizona Daily Star, “Nearly 1,700 bodies, each one a mystery.” http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/nearly-bodies-each-one-a-mystery/article_d8972316-b63a-5e4a-ad01-8518b0012730.html. August 24, 2010.
Courses Taught
ANTH 365: Introduction to Forensic Anthropology
ANTH 150B: Many Ways of Being Human
SBS 300: Introduction to Southwest Studies
Areas of Study
United States
US - Mexico Border
Mexico & Mesoamerica
Latin America & the Caribbean
Projects
Forensic Citizenship in the Borderlands
Together with Dr. Natalia Mendoza Rockwell and Miguel Fernandez de Castro. Forensic Citizenship in the Borderlands is a visual and oral history project that will document, analyze, and share the stories of civilian forensic expertise on both sides of the Arizona-Sonora border. Working closely with the UA libraries and two community organizations, Madres Buscadoras and the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, this project will create an interactive website to highlight this work and explore forensics in the landscape of the borderlands. The site will feature three components: interviews with citizen-forensic experts, videography of the landscape in which they work, and a binational map displaying the GPS locations where they have found or identified human remains. This project will broaden the national and international understanding of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands by presenting a fully binational view of border-related violence, and by making visible the leadership, expertise, and action on the part of those impacted. The story this project will tell is one about regular people in the borderlands who step up to do extraordinary work; who not only make visible violence occurring in the borderlands but also challenge the authority of the state by becoming forensic experts.
Research Interests
science and technology studies, forensic anthropology, the anthropology of humanitarianism and human rights, death and the dead body, surveillance, global migration, U.S.-Mexico border