Missing Persons

Derek Congram is a Research Associate and Lecturer at the University of Toronto and an independent forensic consultant. As an anthropologist and archaeologist, he has worked in 20 countries for families of missing persons, universities, governments, and international organizations, including the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. His teaching, research, and consulting focus on disappeared persons—victims of physical and structural violence.

“Derek Congram has created an important resource for methodologists, applied researchers, and students alike. This well-written edited volume provides coverage of a number of important issues relating to missing persons who may have been victims of criminal acts. Its breadth and scope and the variety of data explored will provoke both thought and emotion. This text helps us think more clearly about important issues in relation to people who go missing in areas such as armed conflict, repressive regimes, and mass fatality incidents, as well as the dedicated effort to find and identify their remains.” - Dr. Karen Shalev Greene, Director of the Centre for the Study of Missing Persons, University of Portsmouth“This book’s multidisciplinary perspective makes it a valuable reference for anyone interested in the study of the missing and disappeared. The integration of multiple perspectives, contexts, and methods in this text is refreshing, and the chapters on Canadian contexts remind us that we have our own sad history of missing individuals, many of whom remain yet to be found and identified.” - Dr. Anne Keenleyside, Faculty of Anthropology, Trent University“Missing Persons provides multi-dimensional perspectives on the missing, examining the viewpoints of the relatives of the missing, of society as a whole, and of the scientists who search for the disappeared. The contributions from international experts exemplify issues surrounding family support, trauma, and the identification of the deceased. The case studies, which span different geographical areas and chronological periods, bring a message of hope in their portrayal of the many efforts to find the missing and bring them justice.” - Dr. Nicholas Marquez-Grant, Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology, Cranfield University

• Foreword by Professor Emeritus Dr. Mark SkinnerForeword by Dr. Marie Wilson, CommissionerAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Missing Persons and Those Who Seek Them: Questions of Perspective and Place - Derek CongramSection I: Contexts And PerspectivesChapter 1: Perspectives on the Missing: Residential Schools for Aboriginal Children in Canada - Alex MaassChapter 2: Absent Bodies, Absent Knowledge: The Forensic Work of Identifying Srebrenica's Missing and the Social Experiences of Families - Sarah Wagner and Rifat Ke""etoviChapter 3: The Missing Files: The Experience of the International Committee of the Red Cross - Shuala M. Drawdy and Cheryl KatzmarzykChapter 4: From Mass Graves to Human Rights: The Discovery of Forced Disappearances in Contemporary Spain - Francisco Ferrándiz and Emilio Silva BarreraChapter 5: Psychosocial Perspectives on the Enforced Disappearance of Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala - Mónica Esmeralda Pinzón GonzálezChapter 6: Collection, Curation, Repatriation: Exploring the Concept of Museum Skeletal Populations as Missing Persons - Janet YoungSection II: Methods Used Towards Finding And Identifying The MissingChapter 7: When X Doesn't Mark the Spot: Historical Investigation and Identifying Remains from the Korean War - Michael R. DolskiChapter 8: Psychosocial Aspects of Interviewing and Self-Care for Practitioners - Vedrana Mladina Chapter 9: A Review of Research into the Spatial Behaviour of Murderers and Implications for Investigations Involving Missing Murder Victims - Samantha LundriganChapter 10: Mapping the Missing: A New Approach to Locating Missing Persons Burial Locations in Armed Conflict Contexts - Derek Congram, Arthur Green, and Hugh TullerChapter 11: Leading Change and Innovation in Missing Person and Unidentified Remains Investigations in Canada - Carole BirdChapter 12: Missing in the US-Mexico Borderlands - Robin Reineke and Bruce E. AndersonChapter 13: The Evidentiary Value of Cultural Objects from Mass Graves: Methods of Analysis, Interpretation, and Limitations - Ariana Fernández Muñoz and Derek CongramChapter 14: Farm to France: The Identification of Canada's Missing Winnipeg Soldiers from the Amiens Battlefield - Laurel CleggAfterword: The Interconnectedness of Missing Persons as a Problem and as a Solution - Derek Congram, Luis Fondebrider, and Eleonor FernándezContributor Biographies