Aja Marie Lans

“Defending the Dead” combines diverse methodological approaches and evidentiary lines informed by Black study and Black feminisms to undertake alternative knowledge production that centers Blackness and Black Ancestors beyond racist paradigms that are maintained by traditional bioarchaeological research. Like many academic disciplines in the United States, bioarchaeology is rooted in biocentric, positivist science that relies on the objectification and thingification of Black people’s bodies and their parts. This project does not simply revise the practice of bioarchaeology; it is focused on ending the exploitation of Black Americans’ skeletal remains for the sake of colonial “science” and laying our Ancestors to rest.