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Nilsson Stutz, L. (2023). Between objects of science and lived lives. The legal liminality of old human remains in museums and research. International Journal of Heritage Studies (IJHS), 29(10), 1061-1074
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Between objects of science and lived lives. The legal liminality of old human remains in museums and research
2023 (English)In: International Journal of Heritage Studies (IJHS), ISSN 1352-7258, E-ISSN 1470-3610, Vol. 29, no 10, p. 1061-1074Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Collections of old human remains in museums are currently under increased scrutiny and pressure. On the one hand they are problematised from a post-colonial and human rights point of view as the material remains of historic and ongoing structural violence connected to scientific knowledge production. On the other, new methods in archaeological science have led to increasing demand for destructive sampling. Without guidance and support by laws and formal standardised professional guidelines, museums may find themselves squeezed from two opposing sides. Based on an analysis of laws and professional guidelines, and a large-scale survey of the practical handling of old human remains in Swedish museums, this article argues that the lack of a shared professional process that recognises the complexity of old human remains as both objects of science and lived lives, risks undermining the role of museums in their relationship to both the public and the research community.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2023
Keywords
ethics, law, survey, museums, human remains
National Category
Cultural Studies
Research subject
Humanities, Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-123440 (URN)10.1080/13527258.2023.2234350 (DOI)001035445400001 ()2-s2.0-85165670183 (Scopus ID)
Projects
Ethical Entanglements. The care for human remains in museums and research.
Funder
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, FOE20-0012
Available from: 2023-08-07 Created: 2023-08-07 Last updated: 2023-11-08Bibliographically approved
Nilsson Stutz, L. (2023). Comment on Repatriation as Pedagogy by Jane Anderson and Sonya Atalay, Current Anthropology. DOI 10.1086/727786. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Comment on Repatriation as Pedagogy by Jane Anderson and Sonya Atalay, Current Anthropology. DOI 10.1086/727786
2023 (English)Other (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

In their article, Jane Anderson and Sonya Atalay propose that we rethink repatriation. Instead of viewing it as mainly about transfer of ownership, they propose that we also understand it as a pedagogic opportunity. The power of this suggestion lies not only in the benefits of learning, which, of course are fundamental, but also in the realization that repatriation is necessary—not only for descending communities but also for the institutions that are in possession of their cultural heri- tage and ancestors. I argue that while native interest and survival are and should remain central to repatriation as a process, it is increasingly also becoming about the survival of these institutions—their reputation, their legitimacy, and their sustainability. Perhaps we have reached a point where museums and other institutions holding collections from indigenous communities need the process of repatriation as much as the communities of origin.

Place, publisher, year, pages
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023. p. 2
Keywords
repatriation, pedagogy, human remains
National Category
Humanities and the Arts
Research subject
Humanities, Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-127774 (URN)
Projects
Ethical Entanglements. The Care for human remains in museums and research.
Funder
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, FOE20-0012
Available from: 2024-02-14 Created: 2024-02-14 Last updated: 2024-03-18
Nilsson Stutz, L. (2023). Fires and Seeds.: Considerations for a decolonized Mesolithic archaeology.. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 56(1), 97-99
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Fires and Seeds.: Considerations for a decolonized Mesolithic archaeology.
2023 (English)In: Norwegian Archaeological Review, ISSN 0029-3652, E-ISSN 1502-7678, Vol. 56, no 1, p. 97-99Article in journal, Editorial material (Other academic) Published
Abstract [en]

The world is on fire, and European archaeologists are starting to feel the heat. With the war in the Ukraine, the rise of polarizing politics and global authoritarianism, and the climate emergency pushing us closer to the tipping point of planetary destruction, we cannot help but to feel deeply affected. In the face of these challenges, we want to act, but what we do as archaeologists can sometimes seem trivial and insignificant. Even worse, a critical examination of our disciplinary history can lead us to conclude that we are complicit in the injustices and even partially responsible for the current situation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2023
Keywords
decolonization, hunters and gatherers, archaeology, mesolithic
National Category
Archaeology
Research subject
Humanities, Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-120806 (URN)10.1080/00293652.2023.2203140 (DOI)000992639700001 ()2-s2.0-85159688643 (Scopus ID)
Available from: 2023-05-19 Created: 2023-05-19 Last updated: 2023-11-08Bibliographically approved
Nilsson Stutz, L. (2023). Living With Death. Living with the Dead.. In: Stiftung Humboldt Forum Im Berliner Schloss (Ed.), in_finite. Living with Death: (pp. 106-111). Leipzig: E. A. Seemann
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Living With Death. Living with the Dead.
2023 (English)In: in_finite. Living with Death / [ed] Stiftung Humboldt Forum Im Berliner Schloss, Leipzig: E. A. Seemann , 2023, p. 106-111Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

From the perspective of the Swedish bioarchaeologist Liv Nilsson Stutz, death triggers a double crisis for the bereaved: A partof social life is lost – and there is a dead body. Here, she addresses the universal significance of the ritual care of the corpse and its different cultural manifestations.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 2023
Keywords
death, loss, the body, ritual practice
National Category
Archaeology
Research subject
Humanities, Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-127777 (URN)9783865025074 (ISBN)
Available from: 2024-02-14 Created: 2024-02-14 Last updated: 2024-02-16Bibliographically approved
Nilsson Stutz, L. (2023). Maa Kheru – can you hear me?. In: Phileas. The Austrian Office of Contemporary Art. (Ed.), First Monograph of Christian Kosmas Mayer: . Wien: DISTANZ Verlag GmbH
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Maa Kheru – can you hear me?
2023 (English)In: First Monograph of Christian Kosmas Mayer / [ed] Phileas. The Austrian Office of Contemporary Art., Wien: DISTANZ Verlag GmbH , 2023Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The electronic sounds of the recreated voice of a male mummy reaches me through the speakers, and I am mesmerized. I know that it is generated from the recreated anatomical materiality of a human being that has been dead for two thousand years. Yet, the synthesized voice sounds electric, as if from a future I have not yet seen. I feel suspended - like a lost point in a scatter diagram in a constant flow of time. Is this a person’s voice I am hearing? How much of him still resides in what is left in his body today?  Human remains, from the fresh cadaver preserved in an old anatomical collection, to the burnt, broken and dissolved fragments carefully curated in museums, constitute something elusive and enigmatic that escapes our fundamental categorizations. Situated on a moving scale between scientific specimens and biomaterial on the one end, and the materiality of a lived life and past personhood on the other, they transgress fundamental boundaries of human culture as they are both object and subject, both life and death. In her essay The Powers of Horror[1], linguist, psychoanalyst and philosopher Julia Kristeva discusses the concept of the abject as a category situated between the subject and the object. The cadaver, she argues, is the ultimate example of this. By challenging fundamental categories of human culture, the abject inspires conflicting responses in us, such as horror and dread, even disgust – but also, and simultaneously, fascination and desire. It is this situatedness in-between categories that makes human remains both problematic and fascinating. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Wien: DISTANZ Verlag GmbH, 2023
Keywords
body, person, death, human remains, liminality, art, voice
National Category
Arts
Research subject
Humanities, Archaeology; Humanities, Art science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-127778 (URN)9783954765379 (ISBN)
Projects
Ethical Entanglements. The Care for Human Remains in Museums and Research
Funder
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, FOE20-0012
Available from: 2024-02-14 Created: 2024-02-14 Last updated: 2024-02-16Bibliographically approved
Nilsson Stutz, L. (2023). What is Remembered. In: Cecilia Axelsson Yngvéus, Malin thor Tureby and Cecilia Trenter (Ed.), (Un)contested heritage: Archives, Museums and Public Spaces (pp. 7-13). Malmö: Malmö universitet
Open this publication in new window or tab >>What is Remembered
2023 (English)In: (Un)contested heritage: Archives, Museums and Public Spaces / [ed] Cecilia Axelsson Yngvéus, Malin thor Tureby and Cecilia Trenter, Malmö: Malmö universitet, 2023, p. 7-13Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

A few weeks ago, I was standing next to what is arguably one of the more contested monuments in Europe today: the Equestrian Statue of Leopold II (1835-1909), at la Place du Trône in Brussels. The bronze statue is banal in its familiar form, yet masterfully sculpted by Thomas Vinçotte in 1914. The king holds his head high, his gaze is directed forward and up to the left, and he sits with both commanding and relaxed posture on a muscular horse that bends its neck elegantly, signaling submission to its rider. This is power and control embodied. When the sculpture was erected in 1926, the king had been dead for 17 years, and the country had emerged from the horrors of World War I with the iconic Western Front trenches cutting across its territories. The German occupation forced many Belgians to become refugees, while others were conscripted into forced labor, or killed for suspected resistance and sabotage or simply as the outcome of collective punishment. Germany viewed the Flemish as an oppressed people and made efforts to support their cause, which risked undermining the cohesion of the young nation. The project to raise the statue had been in the making since the death of the king in 1909, and even included a successful public fundraising effort, but had been put on hold during the war. When it finally was erected in 1926 it commemorated the king as builder and colonizer, but probably also as a national hero and a unifying symbol of a Belgian past – happy, prosperous, and united.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö: Malmö universitet, 2023
Series
Malmö University skrifter med historiska perspektiv ; 33
Keywords
heritage, contestation, memory
National Category
History
Research subject
Humanities, History
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-121261 (URN)10.24834/isbn.9789178773862 (DOI)978-91-7877-385-5 (ISBN)978-91-7877-386-2 (ISBN)
Note

Skall krediteras CONCURRENCES som forskargrupp på LNU - dvs taggas som sökbar för Concurrences

Available from: 2023-06-02 Created: 2023-06-02 Last updated: 2023-07-05Bibliographically approved
Nilsson Stutz, L. & Geber, J. (2022). Att återlämna kvarlevor kan berika forskningen. Forskning Framsteg, 6, 18-19
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Att återlämna kvarlevor kan berika forskningen
2022 (Swedish)In: Forskning Framsteg, ISSN 0015-7937, Vol. 6, p. 1p. 18-19Article in journal (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.)) Published
Abstract [sv]

Forskarvärlden kan inte alltid hålla fast vid rätten att studera mänskliga kvarlevor på sina egna villkor. Att återlämna dem till kulturer där de har sitt ursprung kan dessutom berika historien, skriver bioarkeologen Jonny Geber och arkeologiprofessorn Liv Nilsson Stutz.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Stiftelsen Forskning & framsteg, 2022. p. 1
Keywords
Repatriering, återbegravning, etik, arkeologi, bioarkeologi
National Category
Archaeology Ethics
Research subject
Humanities, Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-118969 (URN)
Projects
Etiska förvecklingar/Ethical Entanglements
Funder
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, FOE20-0012
Available from: 2023-02-01 Created: 2023-02-01 Last updated: 2023-02-02Bibliographically approved
Elliott, B., Damm, C., Nyland, A., Piezonka, H., Porr, M., Nilsson Stutz, L. & Warren, G. (2022). Decolonising the Mesolithic?. Mesolithic Miscellany, 29(2), 59-61
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Decolonising the Mesolithic?
Show others...
2022 (English)In: Mesolithic Miscellany, ISSN 0259-3548, Vol. 29, no 2, p. 59-61Article in journal (Other academic) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Mesolithic Miscellany, 2022
National Category
Archaeology
Research subject
Humanities, Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-110918 (URN)
Available from: 2022-03-21 Created: 2022-03-21 Last updated: 2022-09-20Bibliographically approved
Nilsson Stutz, L. & Stutz, A. J. (2022). Deeply Human: Archaeological Traces of Rituals for Coping with Death, Adversity, and Trauma. In: Jeltje Gordon-Lennox (Ed.), Coping Rituals in Fearful Times: An Unexplored Resource for Healing Trauma (pp. 23-42). Springer
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Deeply Human: Archaeological Traces of Rituals for Coping with Death, Adversity, and Trauma
2022 (English)In: Coping Rituals in Fearful Times: An Unexplored Resource for Healing Trauma / [ed] Jeltje Gordon-Lennox, Springer, 2022, p. 23-42Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

When looking at prehistory, we see that rituals have long been a human strategy to cope with change and challenges such as death, adversity and trauma. Archaeology reaches beyond a time accessible through oral history and historical documents to explore a trail deep in humanity’s past. This discipline relies on the materiality of human life: artefacts, building remains, pathways, worked landscapes, and monuments. But the archaeological focus goes beyond the physical to capture and trace human activity, sometimes mundane and sometimes grand. From material traces of ritual practices, we reconstruct ritual actions and analyse them to comprehend how particular rituals might have affected the people involved. Underlying the archaeological study of ritual is a concern about how it shapes human understanding, resilience, and engagement in the world, particularly in the face of crises and trauma.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer, 2022
Keywords
ritual, death, adversity, trauma, crisis, archaeology, prehistory
National Category
Archaeology Religious Studies
Research subject
Humanities, Archaeology; Humanities, Study of Religions
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-110823 (URN)10.1007/978-3-030-81534-9_2 (DOI)2-s2.0-85153638276 (Scopus ID)978-3-030-81534-9 (ISBN)978-3-030-81536-3 (ISBN)978-3-030-81533-2 (ISBN)
Available from: 2022-03-16 Created: 2022-03-16 Last updated: 2023-05-11Bibliographically approved
Peyroteo-Stjerna, R., Nilsson Stutz, L., Mickleburgh, H. & Cardoso, J. L. (2022). Mummification in the Mesolithic: New Approaches to Old Photo Documentation Reveal Previously Unknown Mortuary Practices in the Sado Valley, Portugal. European Journal of Archaeology, 25(3), 309-330
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Mummification in the Mesolithic: New Approaches to Old Photo Documentation Reveal Previously Unknown Mortuary Practices in the Sado Valley, Portugal
2022 (English)In: European Journal of Archaeology, ISSN 1461-9571, E-ISSN 1741-2722, Vol. 25, no 3, p. 309-330Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Recently rediscovered photographs of the remains of thirteen individuals buried in the Sado Valley Mesolithic shell middens of Poças de S. Bento and Arapouco, excavated in 1960 and 1962, show the potential of revisiting excavation archives with new methods. The analysis, which applies the principles of archaeothanatology and is enriched by experimental taphonomic research, confirmed details concerning the treatment of the dead body and provided new insights into the use of burial spaces. Some bodies may have been mummified prior to burial, a phenomenon possibly linked to their curation and transport, highlighting the significance of both the body and the burial place in Mesolithic south-western Portugal.

Abstract [fr]

Une série de photos récemment redécouvertes, illustrant les sépultures de treize individus ensevelis dans les amas coquilliers mésolithiques de Poças de S. Bento et d'Arapouco fouillés en 1960 et en 1962 dans la vallée du Sado au Portugal, démontre le potentiel d'une réévaluation d'anciennes archives avec de nouvelles méthodes. L'examen des clichés, dans une perspective archéothanatologique et étayés par des recherches expérimentales en taphonomie, a révélé certains détails concernant le traitement des cadavres et offert de nouvelles perspectives sur des lieux de sépulture. Certains cadavres auraient été momifiés, un phénomène que les auteurs associent à la mise en valeur et au transport des défunts et qui souligne l'importance du corps et du lieu de sépulture pendant le Mésolithique dans le sud du Portugal. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Abstract [de]

Letztlich wiederentdeckte Fotos von dreizehn Individuen, welche in den mesolithischen Muschelhäufen von Poças de S. Bento and Arapouco im portugiesischen Sadotal in den Jahren 1960 und 1962 ausgegraben wurden, zeigen das Potenzial einer Neubewertung von Archivalien mit neuen Methoden. Die Auswertung der Bilder, aus einer archäothanatologischen Perspektive gesehen und von experimentellen taphonomischen Untersuchungen unterstützt, hat Aspekte der Behandlung der Leichen bestätigt und neue Einblicke in die Benutzung von Begräbnisstätten geliefert. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf eine mögliche Mumifizierung der Leichen, was vielleicht mit deren Erhaltung und Transport verbunden ist und die Bedeutung des physischen Körpers der Toten sowie der Bestattungsstätten im südportugiesischen Mesolithikum betont. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cambridge University Press, 2022
Keywords
Mesolithic, burial, pre-burial mortuary practice, archaeothanatology, mummification, experimental, mésolithique, pratiques mortuaires avant ensevelissement, archéothanatologie, momification, taphonomie experimentale, Mesolithikum, Bestattungen, Behandlung bevor Grablegung, Archäothanatologie, Mumifizerung, experimentelle Taphonomie
National Category
Archaeology
Research subject
Humanities, Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-110825 (URN)10.1017/eaa.2022.3 (DOI)000763890600001 ()2-s2.0-85125773812 (Scopus ID)
Funder
EU, European Research Council, 319209
Available from: 2022-03-16 Created: 2022-03-16 Last updated: 2023-02-02Bibliographically approved
Projects
Holding on to the Dead. Investigating Mummification in European Prehistory [2023-01175_VR]; Uppsala University
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-0575-7075

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