Summary Of Forensic Anthropology

Forensic anthropology complements humans rights work in many ways, as summarized in Burns’ article. Burns breaks apart forensic anthropology and human rights work, by describing what the fields are fundamentally as well as, describing the history of forensic anthropology and the steps a forensic scientist takes. Burns also shows how each discipline promotes each other, differ from one another, are enacted simultaneously and what they can accomplish. Altogether, Burns argues that human rights crimes are happening everywhere, specifically in places that are said to be dedicated to human rights, such as the citizens of the Philippines who are held at gun point. Forensic anthropology can help amend this worldly problem by providing physical evidence
As Burn mention in the article, anthropologists are trained to have a broad and responsive perspective of cultural/linguistic differences. Cultural and linguistic viewpoints aid in death investigations, because an unbiased viewpoint of the deceased is provided along with physical evidence. In the article, with the mixture of physical evidence, an unbiased viewpoint, and identification of the decease forensic anthropology can greatly aid human rights work in the prosecution process. Whereas with human rights cases solely relying on “verbal testimony”, Burns argues the combination of verbal and physical evidence is more effective in human rights cases. This can all be seen through “professional organizations,” which Burns exemplifies The Minnesota Lawyers International Human Rights Committee. A committee who sees the importance of forming a group of scientists, to write the “Minnesota Protocol,” in order to aid death investigations throughout the
The major people and entities needed in these missions are: families/NGO’s, consultants, international human rights groups, funders, scientists and local workers/students, all of which play a vital role in the process of identifying the body and trauma that it holds. Overall, the significance of Burns’ article is not only does forensic anthropology complement human rights work, but human rights work complements forensic anthropology. Moreover, human rights work complements anthropological work as a whole, and this interdisciplinary work can be seen throughout each of the other articles as