This issue looks at human remains in the context of slavery and post-slavery. The topic is to be addressed through a multidisciplinary approach, bringing together history, anthropology, philosophy, archaeology, bio-archaeology and law.
Contributions may focus on the following themes, among others:
- What material and immaterial sources do cemeteries and tombs contain about the identities, lives and deaths of the enslaved?
- Funerary rites, religious cults, spiritual and cultural practices around ancestral remains.
- The scientific exploitation of the dead bodies of people of African descent and slaves: medical and surgical experiments, post-mortem measurements and mouldings, etc.
- Scientific racism, anti-racism, and collections of skulls and bones.
- Deportation, anonymisation and objectification of human remains collected in the context of slavery and post-abolitionism.
- Restitutions, repatriations, reinhumation and/or rehumanisation of human remains whose history is linked to that of slavery and its abolitions.
- Heritage and memorial policies around slavery burial sites.
If you like to contribute, please send your abstract by 1 June 2025 to ciresc.redaction@cnrs.fr.