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5 - Proof of Death

Evidence and Atrocity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2021

Jessica Auchter
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
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Summary

Chapter 5 examines the tensions between obscenity, dignity, and evidence in the context of contemporary humanitarianism and humanitarian intervention. It explores images of torture victims in Syria, which acted as evidence of the atrocities of the al-Assad regime. These images illustrate how obscene photographs must justify themselves as sufficiently obscene to be seen, reinforcing the taboo in its rupture, as a means to spur humanitarian awareness about an atrocity. This is contextualized in the wider context of atrocity images, and the chapter takes up the published photographs of Aylan Kurdi as a shadow case to tease out the dynamics of the functioning of the obscenity norm. The chapter also explores the use of bodies as “proof of death” and the dilemmas this raises about the ambiguous evidentiary value of dead body images. The chapter examines the various ways death images and dead bodies themselves act as evidence, raising questions about how and when the dead are too obscene to be viewed, and when they are situated within a logic about what must be viewed.

Type
Chapter
Information
Global Corpse Politics
The Obscenity Taboo
, pp. 120 - 148
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Proof of Death
  • Jessica Auchter, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
  • Book: Global Corpse Politics
  • Online publication: 24 September 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009053471.005
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  • Proof of Death
  • Jessica Auchter, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
  • Book: Global Corpse Politics
  • Online publication: 24 September 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009053471.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Proof of Death
  • Jessica Auchter, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
  • Book: Global Corpse Politics
  • Online publication: 24 September 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009053471.005
Available formats
×