Decomposition as Corporeal Politics: Postmortem Violence on the US-Mexico Border

Thousands have died attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico Border over the past two decades. They have died in remote geographies, their bodies often not discovered for months or years. Thousands of families have reported missing persons, and there are an equal number of unidentified remains languishing in morgues or pauper’s graves. In this paper, Reineke introduces the concept of “postmortem violence” as a framework for understanding the status of these decomposing and missing bodies. She rethinks the presence of dead bodies on the border, considering how their actual materiality reveals a hidden corporeal politics at play in the borderlands. Call 928-523-241