The disposability and inclusion of Brown bodies

Abstract

While there has been increased awareness of the ethics of curation, research, and teaching with human skeletal remains, there has been little recognition of the millions of skeletal remains from South Asia that were harvested illegally and/or unethically for educational institutions globally for over a century. This article gives a contextualization of the unique history and nature of anatomical teaching collections, and why they are an important locus for a decolonized and antiracist biological anthropology. I present the historical background of how the exportation and commodification of Indian bodies came to dominate the global bone trade. I also discuss how historical necropolitics explicitly erased the identity and objectified South Asian people made into study skeletons, and the way our current practices continue to uphold colonial violence. Finally, I discuss what we might do with these historical collections and the ways that inclusion of Brown voices is critical to ethical practice.