Forensic Fantasies
eBook - ePub

Forensic Fantasies

Doctors, Documents, and the Limits of Truth in Turkey

  1. 200 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Forensic Fantasies

Doctors, Documents, and the Limits of Truth in Turkey

About this book

How progressive doctors, medical institutions, and state forces in Turkey use forensic methods to detect, erase, and reveal evidence of state violence

Forensic Fantasies explores the role of medical documentation and evidence in uncovering human rights violations. Anthropologist Ba?ak Can examines how progressive doctors, medical institutions, and state forces in Turkey use forensic methods to detect, erase, reveal, and transform violence exerted against populations deemed to be enemies of the state.

Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork with doctors engaged in forensic documentation of torture, Can shows how the shared belief in the power of medical witnessing to establish truth and justice brings political activists and medical experts into community with each other; at the same time, this belief, or "forensic fantasy," as Can terms it, can actually further entrench state power through its reliance on legal and administrative recognition of the violence it is seeking to document.

Unpacking the epistemological frameworks, political histories, institutional and legal structures, professional networks, and daily practices that give rise to and sustain these forensic fantasies, Can exposes the possibilities and limits of radical documentation as a political project. Shedding new light on the tensions of our contemporary post-truth moment, Can demonstrates how forensic fantasies are vital for forming communities of experts who oppose regimes of denial and ignorance, but at the same time, have limited political efficacy in bringing about change and countering state violence.

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Yes, you can access Forensic Fantasies by Başak Can in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Middle Eastern History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Introduction. Forensic Medical Documentation as a Fantasy
  7. Chapter 1. Phantasmal Commitment to Veracity
  8. Chapter 2. The Proof and Fantasy of Human Rights
  9. Chapter 3. The Everyday Work of Keeping the Forensic Fantasy Alive
  10. Chapter 4. The Necropolitics of Phantasmal Documents
  11. Chapter 5. Forensic Fantasies in the Streets
  12. Conclusion. The Limits of Political Fantasies and Evidence
  13. Notes
  14. References
  15. Index
  16. Acknowledgments