Agarwal Sabrina C
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA.
Am J Biol Anthropol. 2025 Jan;186(1):e25003. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.25003. Epub 2024 Jul 21.
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.
尽管人们对人类骨骼遗骸的管理、研究和教学伦理的认识有所提高，但一个多世纪以来，全球教育机构非法和/或不道德地获取了数百万来自南亚的骨骼遗骸，这一点却鲜为人知。本文对解剖学教学藏品的独特历史和性质进行了背景介绍，并阐述了它们为何是去殖民化和反种族主义生物人类学的重要场所。我介绍了印度尸体的出口和商品化如何主导全球骨骼贸易的历史背景。我还讨论了历史上的死亡政治如何明确抹去了被制成研究骨架的南亚人的身份并将他们物化，以及我们目前的做法如何继续维护殖民暴力。最后，我讨论了我们对这些历史藏品可以采取的措施，以及纳入有色人种声音对道德实践至关重要的方式。
