The dead that speak. Ethnographic investigations and ethical reflections on deaths and corpses in Córdoba, Argentina.

Abstract

In this article I will share reflections mainly on the ethical order in relation to the implications of investigating ethnographically about deaths and deaths. These concerns arose during the completion of my doctorate, where I focused on the construction of the figure of the “other” considered as a “subversive.” I was particularly interested in the treatment at the time of the death of these "enemies", specifically in Córdoba, in '75, a period in which the murders of people related to the "subversion" acquired repercussions. By treatment I mean both the administrative management of these bodies, as well as the meanings, stories and practices captured in the written traces to which we currently access.

From the field records, the interviews carried out, the absence of most of the “subjects involved” -already dead- and a series of field scenes that I will share in the following pages, various questions were woven around the position as a researcher facing the work of recounting death, investigating it, objectifying it. These questions refer to how does one write about the dead? What of those dead questions us? What legitimacy exists in our story as researchers when talking about what is absent? Are any ethics of care exercised in inquiry and writing about the dead in our research processes? These and other questions will be those that I will share throughout this writing, open to debate and reflection, in the interrelation between the anthropological discipline and philosophical reflection.