Religion, Human Rights, and Forensic Activism: The Search for the Disappeared in Latin America

María Soledad Catoggio

doi:10.3390/rel11110601

Abstract

This paper systematizes and analyzes the links and exchanges between the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense (EAAF)) and the world of religion. My hypothesis is that these links are inextricable from the mode of operation that defined the EAAF, which can be called “forensic activism”. This kind of activism, outside the State, combined scientific expertise with humanitarian sensitivity, defined by its autonomy from the human rights movement and the national scientific system (both academic and university). Moreover, religion emerged constantly from the type of work undertaken, between the living and the dead. Thus, beliefs, with their prohibitions, rituals, and ways of making sense of suffering and their tools for coming to terms with grief, coexisted with the EAAF’s development. These findings emerge from a qualitative research design combining document analysis, in-depth interviews, and participative observation of scientific disclosure open to the public provided by the EAAF over the past three years.

Highlights

The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense), or EAAF according to its acronym in Spanish, helped to form a network of teams in Latin America and the world
This paper proposes to systematize and understand the importance of these links and exchanges between the EAAF and the world of religion
I will consider (1) how the EAAF arose within the global framework of articulation between scientific teams and human rights; (2) the specificity of the EAAF, constituted as an organization outside the State, associated with a religious framework and defined by “forensic activism”, and (3)

Summary

Introduction

The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense), or EAAF according to its acronym in Spanish, helped to form a network of teams in Latin America and the world. Their history includes many references to religious leaders, churches, and religious institutions or those who are part of the global social movement associated with religions that we can call “religious world”. I am referring to the set of international agencies, foundations, cooperatives, and so on who have some organic link with religious institutions either through institutional endorsement, membership, or financing It is a vast network where avowed believers often join forces in solidarity with secular activists committed to humanitarian values with no religious affiliation

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