Our upcoming class for this week is going to include a conversation with Dr. Shawn Graham as well as discussions on archaeology and social media. These upcoming discussions have had me actively thinking about an issue relevant to archaeology that I think a lot of us are unaware of: the human remains trade on social media. I think most of us are aware of the illicit antiquities trade; when archaeological sites are looted and destroyed for the purpose of selling artifacts on the worldwide antiquities market. However, this is not limited to material remains. Human remains are frequently sold on the global antiquities market, particularly via social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.
In the case of Instagram, the platform's terms of service prohibit "illicit activities". However in reality a variety of illegal activities, from the sale of drugs to exotic animals to human remains, go relatively unchecked on the platform. Additionally, legislation on the sale of human remains varies depending on local jurisdiction and often focuses primarily on the de-accessioning of museum collections. Therefore, the sale of human remains on Instagram tends to fall within various loopholes.
It might seem that the trade in human remains on social media is removed from the discipline of archaeology. However, this practice is reminiscent of archaeology's colonial past; when Western antiquarians and early archaeologists plundered artifacts from archaeological sites and brought them home, and filled cabinets of curiosities. Those cabinets of curiosities eventually became museums, and the discipline has since begun the work of addressing its colonial past through repatriation and discourse on decolonizing archaeology. However, the ideas, rhetoric, and jargon behind cabinets of curiosities is alive and well on social media sites. Commonly used terms on posts related to the sale and modification of human remains include "oddity", "oddities", "macabre", "curiosity", "curiosities", and "antique".
The human remains trade on social media is a relatively new area of research. It highlights questions of power, agency, commodification, and connectivity. For many collectors of human remains, there does not appear to be an ethical problem. The language which is used to describe human remains acts to remove all humanity and agency from these remains. They are no longer human, rather they are objects without agency which can therefore be bought and sold "legally". Additionally, collectors partake in a practice that allows them to curate their own assemblage of artifacts and apply their own value to these remains, while creating feelings of community and connectivity with other collectors. Overall, the sale of human remains online invites us to reflect on the legacy of archaeology. While we might be working to decolonize the field of archaeology, archaeology's colonial past is alive and well in the public sphere and goes relatively unchecked on these platforms. Are we doing enough as archaeologists do counter the legacy of archaeology outside of the bubble of academia?
Sources:
Huffer, D. and Graham, S. 2018. Fleshing Out the Bones: Studying the Human Remains Trade with Tensorflow and Inception. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 1 (1), pp. 55-63. http://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.8
Huffer, D. and Graham, S. 2017. The Insta-Dead: The rhetoric of the human remains trade on Instagram. Internet Archaeology, 45. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.45.5
3 comments:
Samantha,
I find this post quite interesting, particularly because I have never thought about human remains being sold via social media before. I am not surprised, however, social media like Facebook and Instagram have become more than a space for marketing but also a marketplace themselves. It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that the human remains being sold and purchased through social media are depersonalized and separated from connection to any modern people, which somehow makes it easier to dismiss the ethical questions about buying and selling human remains? Perhaps if the general public knew what personal details and information can be revealed from the human skeleton, there would be a greater sense of personalization and a view of human remains as individuals with a past and with agency rather than as objects. I am not sure what archaeologists can do in terms of policing the illegal sales of human remains, but they can certainly have a role in educating the public about the stories human remains can tell and their link to individual personhood. I would love to learn more about this topic!
I had also never considered that human remains could be sold through social media especially a site like Instagram! I feel as though most non-archaeologists have this disconnected view about archaeological human remains because of the media's portrayal of archaeology as well. Popular culture for archaeology is still centred around characters like Indiana Jones who was more of a looter than an archaeologist. I think that archaeologists should definitely be doing more to educate the public about the agency of human remains, though I am not sure that the people purchasing and selling these human remains will be willing to listen. Maybe there is something that can be done by reaching out to the platforms themselves to get them to implement more in depth ethical requirements for these sellers.
Hi Sam!
This is a very interesting thought piece! You touch on many important issues/considerations that are very central to the field of bioarchaeology, and I think it is important that we, as bioarchaeologists, have discussions about these issues in public spaces (such as blog posts) in order to interact with not only each other, but also wider audiences likely to consume this content.
The regulation of and ethics surrounding human remains is quite a complex issue, even without the added interconnectivity and lack of geo-political division that the internet and social media brings. I think that this issue really brings attention to this idea of intended versus actual audience and how the content of these sites (particularly those with user control of content) reflects those audiences. I'm sure that the marketplace feature on Instagram, for example, was not designed with the intention of supporting the human remains trade, but alas it does. And, so, it is important for us to discuss how these activities are able to persist on these platforms and how these companies might better regulate them.
As you point out, Sam, these ideas of human remains as curiosities or oddities, objectifying these remains as commodities, relates heavily to our colonial beginnings as a discipline. It reflects the narratives of collecting and displaying human remains as objects of curiosity and the power relations that allowed these actions to happen. As a result, I think that having public discussions about our colonialist legacy, and being transparent about the harms of our discipline's past and the changes it has sought to make, may help others to identify these remains as once-living people who deserve to be treated with respect rather than objectified and commoditized.
-Teegan
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