The Decolonial Turn in Forensic Anthropology

Abstract

Forensic anthropology has matured into a formidable and fully fledged discipline that includes specialty graduate programs, diversified employment opportunities, an expanding scope, and improved regulation. As part of this maturity, and in step with other branches of science and the humanities, forensic anthropology has also experienced an upswing in discourse on decolonization and decoloniality. From its inception and throughout its history, anthropology has been a colonial venture that observes humans under a Western gaze. As a critique of the universality and superiority of Western systems of knowledge, the decolonial turn constitutes alternative ways of thinking and doing and provides space for these epistemes to circulate and thrive. In this synthesis, decolonization efforts within forensic anthropology are organized into five “C's” of appraisal: categories, casework, curricula, competence, and collections. Namely, these efforts feature the debates around sex, ancestry, and structural vulnerability estimation (categories); the expansion of humanitarian action and community involvement and the challenges to positivism, neutrality, and objectivity (casework); the assessment of how we educate, train, and value expertise (curricula and competence); and the interrogation of how we extract knowledge from the dead (collections). From the undercurrents of these five, a sixth C, care, is unveiled. Given the academic and practical value of forensic anthropology, especially vis-à-vis its consequences for colonized peoples, these discourses become imperative for the continued relevance of a colonialist field in a postcolonial world.