Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team - Work

Work

The EAAF's investigation methods were divided into three stages:

  1. Preliminary phase, collecting written and oral accounts of the disappeared.
  2. Analysis phase, studying documents and records in order to identify the possible whereabouts of the remains
  3. Archaeological phase, similar to classical archaeology within a forensic context. This phase also used genetic investigation techniques based on DNA testing.

The EAAF was a pioneer in developing these techniques. In the words of Clyde Snow:

"For the first time in the history of human rights investigations we began to use a scientific method to investigate violations. Although we started out small, it led to a genuine revolution in how human rights violations are investigated. The idea of using science in the human rights area began here, in Argentina, and it is now used throughout the world. The Team took the idea to other parts of the world and helped set up teams in other countries, such as Guatemala, Chile, and Peru. European countries now have their forensic anthropology teams. But Argentina was the first."

By 2000 the EAAF had succeeded in identifying sixty sets of remains, while a further 300 cases were still under investigation.

Read more about this topic:  Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team

Famous quotes containing the word work:

    I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
    Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
    In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
    Till then I see what’s really always there:
    Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
    Making all thought impossible but how
    And where and when I shall myself die.
    Philip Larkin (1922–1986)

    The work of the miner has its unavoidable incidents of discomfort and danger, and these should not be increased by the neglect of the owners to provide every practicable safety appliance. Economies which involve a sacrifice of human life are intolerable.
    Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)

    Meanwhile, if the fear of falling into error sets up a mistrust of Science, which in the absence of such scruples gets on with the work itself, and actually cognizes something, it is hard to see why we should not turn round and mistrust this very mistrust.... What calls itself fear of error reveals itself rather as fear of the truth.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)