More Than Just Bare Bones: Ethical Considerations for Forensic Anthropologists

Abstract

Forensic anthropology is the field of study concerned with the identification of suspected or known human remains from medico-legal contexts. Traditionally forensic anthropologists dealt with dry, complete, and fragmentary skeletal remains, but they now commonly work with a range of differentially preserved remains including fleshed, decomposed, burnt, dismembered, and heavily disrupted remains. In addition, forensic anthropologists assist in answering questions of identification in clinical cases, such as those related to the age of an individual (for example, Black, Aggrawal, & Payne 2010), and questions related to investigations involving missing persons and victims of crimes, accidents, mass disasters, and crimes resulting from periods of political, ethnic, and/or religious violence (Blau In press). Because of the emotive nature of the material forensic anthropologists work with and the diversity of contexts in which they may work, the ethical issues practitioners have to consider span social, cultural, and political realms. This chapter considers a number of ethical issues that a forensic anthropologist may face and, in doing so, raises questions rather than provide answers about the myriad ethical matters that should/do concern the practice of forensic anthropology.