The Bioarchaeology of Structural Violence and Dissection in the 19th‐Century United States

Abstract

ABSTRACT Structural violence is harm done to individuals or groups through the normalization of social inequalities in political‐economic organization. Researchers working in both modern and prehistoric contexts focus on the lived experiences of individuals and the health disparities that arise from such violence. With this article, I seek to contribute to this literature by considering how skeletal evidence of dissection from the 19th‐century United States reflects structural violence. I focus on “death experiences” and suggest that studies of structural violence must consider not only how inequality may be embodied as health disparities in the living but also “disembodiment” and the treatment and fate of the dead body.

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