Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Syncretic Forensics in Post-Atrocity Repair

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Dawnie Wolfe Steadman at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating how forensic anthropologists in post-atrocity contexts can honor diverse mortuary care practices in their work while meeting the medical and scientific standards of forensic science. For example, there is a model whereby a cultural anthropologist acts as mediator between forensic workers and Indigenous tribes who do not recognize Western medicine. While research shows that community perceptions of proper treatment of the deceased is critical to reestablishing social cohesion in post-atrocity contexts, the lack of systematic guidelines for doing so leaves forensic anthropologists at risk of doing more harm. To expand our understanding in this area, we will research how forensic anthropologists in human rights investigations align diverse cultural requirements for mortuary care with the application of medical and scientific standards of forensic science. We will pursue two lines of inquiry: 1) forensic capacity, specifically the integration of qualitative data into biological profiling; and 2) cultural sensitivity, evaluating to what extent a victim-centered approach used reconciles with the Differential Protocols being tested by forensic anthropologists. By integrating traditionally qualitative data such as oral histories and witness testimony into the forensic process, this research will hopefully help lay the groundwork for the gradual establishment and refinement of cross-cultural tactics for syncretizing forensic work with localized mortuary care. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.