Graham Denyer Willis, "Keep the Bones Alive: Missing People and the Search for Life in Brazil" (U California Press, 2022)

New Books in Sociology · Nov 3, 2023 · 1h 39m

Every year at least 20,000 people go missing in São Paulo, Brazil. Many will be found, sometimes in mundane mass graves, but thousands will not. Keep the Bones Alive: Missing People and the Search for Life in Brazil (U California Press, 2022) explores this phenomenon and why there is little concern for those who vanish. Ethnographer Graham Denyer Willis works beside family members, state workers, and gravediggers to examine the rationalization behind why bodies are missing in space--from cemeteries, the criminal coroner's office, prisons, and elsewhere. By accompanying the bereaved as they…