Homecoming: Tasting Death in a Vietnamese Forensic Laboratory
MP3•Episode home
Manage episode 487904587 series 3472917
Content provided by Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology and Computing. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology and Computing or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Tiên-Dung Hà can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2025/06/homecoming-tasting-death-in-a-vietnamese-forensic-laboratory/. About the post: This sacred obligation to the dead allows the Vietnamese forensic scientists and technicians to think beyond the dichotomies of martyr/non-martyr, or North/South Vietnamese. A high-level scientist at CDI once confided in me that there are many commingled remains between North and South Vietnamese or between Vietnamese and American soldiers, especially due to bodies getting tangled up in bombs and explosions. To this high-level scientist, these past political differences did not matter. They expressed to me their desire to identify everyone, meaning remains of not just the martyrs, but also the Southern Vietnamese soldiers and American soldiers. To my scientist interlocutors, every mother who has lost her children in the war deserves to know where their remains lie.
…
continue reading
166 episodes