Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T14:19:53.957Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Landscape Structural Violence: A View from New Orleans’s Cemeteries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2019

Ryan M. Seidemann  and
Christine L. Halling Open the ORCID record for Christine L. Halling [Opens in a new window]
Ryan M. Seidemann
Affiliation:
Louisiana Department of Justice, Civil Division, Lands and Natural Resources, 1885 N. Third Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70802, USA; Southern University Law Center, 2 Roosevelt Steptoe Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70813, USA; University of New Orleans, Department of Planning and Urban Studies, 2000 Lakeshore Drive, New Orleans, LA 70148, USA
Christine L. Halling*
Affiliation:
Louisiana Department of Justice, Civil Division, Lands and Natural Resources, 1885 N. Third Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70802, USA
*
([email protected], corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

“Structural violence” is a term used to describe inflicted systematic violence on a disenfranchised group by an established order, usually framed as a government or the social majority. The disenfranchised groups are marginalized and not provided with the same access to resources such as healthcare or food, the effects of which can be observed directly in their death. Bioarchaeologists often can detect the visible effects of this violence on skeletal remains, which provide a visual representation to and reinforcement of social prejudices inflicted in life and death. Discussed here is how the same concept of structural violence can be inflicted on the landscape through damage to or obliteration of cemeteries. We propose a definition of “landscape structural violence” exhibited through cemetery erasure as a reinforcement of preexisting social prejudices in death where the governments or the social majority, intentionally or passively, destroy, remove, or obscure a cemetery without consultation with the descendant community. This definition is applied to several examples of New Orleans cemeteries to determine the functionality of the definition and what activity is and what is not structural violence inflicted on the landscape.

Violencia estructural es un término utilizado para describir la violencia sistemática infligida en un grupo marginado por un orden establecido, generalmente enmarcado como un gobierno o la mayoría social. A los grupos desfavorecidos que están marginados, no se les proporciona el mismo aceso a recursos tales como atención médica o alimentos, cuyos efectos se pueden observar directamente en su muerte. Los bioarqueólogos a menudo pueden detectar los efectos visibles de esta violencia en los restos de esqueletos, proporcionando una representación visual y el refuerzo de los prejuicios sociales infligidos en la vida y la muerte. Aquí se discute cómo se puede infligir el mismo concepto de violencia estructural en el paisaje a través del daño o la destrucción de los cementerios. Proponemos una definición de la Violencia Estructural del Paisaje exhibida a través de la eliminación del cementerio como un refuerzo de prejuicios sociales preexistentes en la muerte donde los gobiernos o la mayoría social, intencionalmente o por pasividad, destruyen, eliminan u oscurecen un cementerio sin consultar con la comunidad descendiente. Esta definición se aplica a varios ejemplos de cementerios de Nueva Orleans para determinar la funcionalidad de la definición y qué es la actividad y qué no es la violencia estructural infligida en el paisaje.

Keywords

landscapesviolencestructural violencecemeteryNew Orleanspaisajesviolenciaviolencia estructuralcementerioNueva Orleans
Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 669 - 683
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by the Society for American Archaeology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Amanat, Mehrdad 2012 Set in Stone: Homeless Corpses and Desecrated Graves in Modern Iran. International Journal of Middle East Studies 44:257–283.Google Scholar
Blakey, Michael L. 2010 African Burial Ground Project: Paradigm for Cooperation? Museum International 62(1–2):61–68.Google Scholar
Blakely, Robert L., and Harrington, Judith M. 1997 Bones in the Basement: Postmortem Racism in Nineteenth-Century Medical Training. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Bowring, Jacqueline 2011 Containing Marginal Memories: The Melancholy Landscapes of Hart Island (New York), Cockatoo Island (Sydney), and Ripapa Island (Christchurch). Memory Connection 1:252–270.Google Scholar
Branyon, Ian C. M. 1998 An Investigation into the Ethnographic and Historical Significance of Holt Cemetery. Master's thesis, Department of Urban Studies, University of New Orleans, Louisiana.Google Scholar
Caldwell, James D., and Seidemann, Ryan M. 2010a Louisiana Attorney General Opinion No. 10-0234.Google Scholar
Caldwell, James D., and Seidemann, Ryan M. 2010b Louisiana Attorney General Opinion No. 10-0018.Google Scholar
Caldwell, James D., and Seidemann, Ryan M. 2010c Louisiana Attorney General Opinion No. 10-0259.Google Scholar
Chopra, Anayika 2014 Structural Violence. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Approach and Studies 1(4):19–23.Google Scholar
Cocks, Joan 2012 The Violence of Structures and the Violence of Foundings. New Political Science 34:221–227.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, Rana 2015 Capital: The Eruption of Delhi. Penguin Books, London.Google Scholar
Dedek, Peter B. 2017 The Cemeteries of New Orleans: A Cultural History. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Dethlefsen, Edwin, and Deetz, James 1966 Death's Heads, Cherubs, and Willow Trees: Experimental Archaeology in Colonial Cemeteries. American Antiquity 31:502–510.Google Scholar
Ellis, Carolyn 2003 Grave Tending: With Mom at the Cemetery. Forum: Qualitative Social Research 4(2). DOI:10.17169/fqs-4.2.701, accessed January 8, 2019.Google Scholar
Farmer, Paul 2004 An Anthropology of Structural Violence. Current Anthropology 45:305–317.Google Scholar
Florido, Adrian 2018 “My Father is in There”: Anguish Builds in Puerto Rico Mountains over Decimated Tombs. Electronic document, https://www.npr.org/2018/12/06/673268881/my-father-is-in-there-anguish-builds-in-puerto-rico-mountains-over-decimated-tom, accessed January 3, 2019.Google Scholar
Frohne, Andrea E. 2015 The African Burial Ground in New York City: Memory, Spirituality, and Space. Syracuse University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Galtung, Johan 1969 Violence, Peace, and Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research 6:167–191.Google Scholar
Galtung, Johan 1980 The True Worlds: A Transnational Perspective. Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
Gray, D. Ryan 2017 Archaeological Excavations and Recovery of Human Remains from the St. Peter Street Cemetery (16OR92), Orleans Parish, Louisiana. University of New Orleans, Louisiana. Submitted to Louisiana Division of Archaeology, Report No. 22-5302. Copies available from Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Hahn, Thurston H. G., and McCarthy, Andrea 2012 Archaeological Monitoring of the Demolition of Thomy Lafon Elementary School, Locust Grove Cemetery/Lafon School Site (16OR565), Orleans Parish, Louisiana. Coastal Environments, Inc. Submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, New Orleans, Louisiana, Report No. 22-3934. Copies available from Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Hahn, Sara A., Carpenter, Michael, Hahn, Thurston H. G. III, Jungeblut, Philip, Anne Marie, Maher Blank, and Ryan, Joanne 2017 Former Gates of Mercy Cemetery (שערי רחמי בית הקברות) Site (16OR707) Archaeological Monitoring, Phase I Limited Survey and Phase II Testing at the Allie Mae Williams Multi-Service Center New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana. Coastal Environments, Inc. Submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, New Orleans, Louisiana, Report No. 22-5301. Copies available from Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Halling, Christine L., and Seidemann, Ryan M. 2016 They Sell Skulls Online?! A Review of Internet Sales of Human Skulls on eBay and the Laws in Place to Restrict Sales. Journal of Forensic Sciences 61:1322–1326.Google Scholar
Halling, Christine L. and Seidemann, Ryan M. 2017 Structural Violence in New Orleans: Skeletal Evidence from Charity Hospital's Cemeteries 1847–1929. In The Bioarchaeology of Dissection and Autopsy in the United States, edited by Nystrom, Kenneth C., pp.165–184. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Hong, Mai-Linh K. 2017 “Get Your Asphalt off My Ancestors!”: Reclaiming Richmond's African Burial Ground. Law, Culture, and the Humanities 13:81–103.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Janet 2004 From the Profane to the Sacred: Ritual and Mourning at Sites of Terror and Violence. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43:311–315.Google Scholar
Joiner, Mary Catherine, and Seidemann, Ryan M. 2019 Rising from the Dead: A Jurisprudential Review of Recent Cemetery and Human Remains Cases. Ohio Northern University Law Review 45:1–68.Google Scholar
Jumonville, Florence 2016 Nameless Graves: Indigent Cemeteries of New Orleans. Save Our Cemeteries, New Orleans, Louisiana.Google Scholar
Klaus, Haagen D. 2012 The Bioarchaeology of Structural Violence: A Theoretical Model and a Case Study. In The Bioarchaeology of Violence, edited by Martin, Debra L., Harrod, Ryan P., and Perez, Ventura R., pp. 29–62. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
LaRoche, Cheryl J., and Blakey, Michael L. 1997 Seizing Intellectual Power: The Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground. Historical Archaeology 31(3):84–106.Google Scholar
Lewis, R. Barry, and Pollack, David 1996 The Future of Kentucky's Past. In Kentucky Archaeology, edited by Lewis, R. Barry, pp. 213–226. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Littleton, Judith H., and Frolich, Bruno 2012 Postmortem Violence? Identifying and Interpreting Postmortem Disturbance in Mongolia. Landscapes of Violence 2(2):7.Google Scholar
Maples, James N., and East, Elizabeth A. 2013 Destroying Mountains, Destroying Cemeteries: Historic Mountain Cemeteries in the Coalfields of Boone, Kanawha, and Raleigh Counties, West Virginia. Journal of Appalachian Studies 19:7–26.Google Scholar
Martin, Debra L., and Harrod, Ryan P. 2012 Body Parts and Parts of Bodies: Traces of Violence in Past Cultures. International Journal of Paleopathology 2:49–52.Google Scholar
Miller, DeMond S., and Rivera, Jason D. 2006 Hallowed Ground, Place, and Culture: The Cemetery and Creation of Place. Space and Culture 9:334–350.Google Scholar
Morazán, Ronald Rafael 1972 Letters, Petitions, and Decrees of the Cabildo of New Orleans, 1800–1803: Edited and Translated. PhD dissertation, Department of History, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Nystrom, Kenneth C. 2014 The Bioarchaeology of Structural Violence and Dissection in the 19th-Century United States. American Anthropologist 116:765–779.Google Scholar
Nystrom, Kenneth C. (editor) 2017 The Bioarchaeology of Dissection and Autopsy in the United States. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Owsley, Douglas W., Mann, Robert W., and Lanphear, Kim M. 1990 Osteological Examination of Human Remains from the Charity Hospital/Cypress Grove II Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana (Final report of investigations – volume 2). Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Parsons, Kenneth A. 2007 Structural Violence and Power. Peace Review. 19:173–181.Google Scholar
Reever, Logan 2018a APSO and Louisiana Cemetery Board Launch Investigations into Eunice Grave Movement. Electronic document, https://www.klfy.com/news/local/apso-and-louisiana-cemetery-board-launch-investigations-into-eunice-grave-movement/1066728358, accessed November 19, 2018.Google Scholar
Reever, Logan 2018b Eunice Mother Who Was Searching for Infant Son's Remains Removed from Grave Dies Suddenly. Electronic document, https://www.klfy.com/top-stories/eunice-mother-who-was-searching-for-infant-sons-remains-removed-from-grave-dies-suddenly/1087446735, accessed November 19, 2018.Google Scholar
Richardson, Ruth 1988 Death, Dissection, and the Destitute: The Politics of the Corpse in Pre-Victorian Britain. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Roller, Michael P. 2018 An Archaeology of Structural Violence: Life in a Twentieth-Century Coal Town. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Rugg, Julie 2013 Constructing the Grave: Competing Burial Ideas in Nineteenth-Century England. Social History 38:328–345.Google Scholar
Rugg, Julie, and Holland, Stephen 2017 Respecting Corpses: The Ethics of Grave Re-Use. Mortality 22:1–14.Google Scholar
Russell, Larry 2003 Stopping by a Cemetery on a Snowy Morning. Journal of Loss and Trauma 8:221–227.Google Scholar
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy 1992 Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Schexnayder, Jessica H., and Manhein, Mary H. 2017 Fragile Grounds: Louisiana's Endangered Cemeteries. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson.Google Scholar
Seidemann, Ryan M. 2004 Bones of Contention: A Comparative Examination of Law Governing Human Remains from Archaeological Contexts in Formerly Colonial Countries. Louisiana Law Review 64:545–588.Google Scholar
Seidemann, Ryan M. 2010 NAGPRA at 20: What Have the States Done to Expand Human Remains Protections? Museum Anthropology 33:199–209.Google Scholar
Seidemann, Ryan M. 2013 How Do We Deal With All the Bodies? A Review of Recent Cemetery and Human Remains Legal Issues. University of Baltimore Journal of Land and Development 3:1–70.Google Scholar
Seidemann, Ryan M. 2014 Do Not Disturb: A Practical Guide for What Not to Do Around Cemeteries and Human Remains for the Louisiana Energy and Land Use Practitioner. LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources 2:239–280.Google Scholar
Seidemann, Ryan M. 2018a Requiescat in Pace: The Cemetery Dedication and Its Implications for Land Use in Louisiana and Beyond. William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review 42:895–922.Google Scholar
Seidemann, Ryan M. 2018b The Sanctity of the Dead: Cemetery Protection Laws Are Not Takings of Private Property. Southern University Law Review 46:53–79.Google Scholar
Seidemann, Ryan M., and Kleinpeter, Kenneth P. 2014 Restorative Excavations and Ground Truthing: Remote Sensing on the Cheap in Historic Highland Cemetery (16EBR190). Paper presented at the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin, Texas.Google Scholar
Sheppard-Simms, Emma A. 2016 Islands of the Abject: Absence, Trauma, and Memory in the Cemetery Island. Landscapes of Violence 4: Article 2.Google Scholar
Shultz, Suzanne M. 2005 Body Snatching: The Robbing of Graves for the Education of Physicians in Early Nineteenth-Century America. McFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Stone, Pamela K. 2012 Binding Women: Ethnology, Skeletal Deformations, and Violence against Women. International Journal of Paleopathology 2:53–60.Google Scholar
Walls, Samuel 2011 “Lest We Forget”: The Spatial Dynamics of the Church and Churchyard as Commemorative Spaces for the War Dead in the Twentieth Century. Mortality 16:131–144.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Neil L. 2010 Demon Landscapes: Sacrificial Architecture and Monumental Death. Landscapes of Violence 1: Article 1. DOI:10.7275/R5RF5RZD.Google Scholar
Woodthorpe, Kate 2011 Sustaining the Contemporary Cemetery: Implementing Policy alongside Conflicting Perspectives and Purpose. Mortality 16:259–276.Google Scholar
Wyndham, Marivic, and Read, Peter 2011 The Cemetery, the State, and the Exiles: A Study of Cementerio Colón, Havana, and Woodlawn Cemetery, Miami. PORTAL: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies 8(1):1–19.Google Scholar