Disturbing Bodies is the cleverly titled edited volume that resulted from a seminar sponsored by the School for Advanced Research in 2012. Succinctly conveying themes explored throughout the book, the title has a double meaning refering to the disruption (i.e., exhumation or excavation) of human remains in forensic and archaeological contexts and the psychological impact such work has on those who perform or are otherwise affected by it (e.g. anthropologists, other professionals, family members of the deceased, and their communities).

Ten anthropologists who work with or around human remains—including in forensic archaeology in human rights investigations, domestic forensic anthropological casework, bioarchaeological and mortuary archaeological assessments, and ethnological analyses—contribute to 10 chapters. All chapters are engagingly written and incorporate to varying degrees formal prose, factual accounts of events, and first person narrative.

Chapter 1, coauthored by editors Crossland and Joyce, provides an overview of the volume and introduces the theme that forensic investigations of human rights violations are different from traditional models of forensic anthropology. The former demands a flexible and holistic approach where attention to context (both physical and cultural) is critical and adaptability is required because of different and potentially opposing professional, cultural, or governmental expectations. Further, whether the context is forensic or archaeological, the deceased have agency that affects the living, and anthropologists are uniquely qualified to represent it.

The remaining chapters expand on these concepts. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on international human rights work. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss standardization broadly in forensic anthropology and narrowly in human rights contexts. Chapters 6 through 8 comment on portrayals of forensic anthropologists in popular culture and the complexity of ancestry assessment and how its use may perpetuate the misunderstanding of race as a biological category. Chapters 9 and 10 offer accounts of working with the deceased from bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology perspectives.

The strength of the volume is its broad anthropological representation. The authors include biological anthropologists, archaeologists, and a social anthropologist. Even how language is used regarding the deceased is addressed in Chapter 10. From this diversity comes recognition of the holistic nature of forensic anthropology in human rights investigations and the acknowledgment that its practice varies in international settings. Difficult discussions are initiated about standardization, the meaning of justice, and the responsibility anthropologists have to “speak” for the dead, whether by generating evidence useful in legal proceedings or by “bear[ing] historical witness to their lives” in cases of archaeological remains (p. 183).

A limitation of the volume is that domestic casework is mostly missing from the discussion (Chapter 7 by Walsh-Haney and Boys is an exception, but it focuses on the difficulties of ancestry assessment rather than on casework per se). This omission may be attributable to the conventional perception of forensic anthropology as laboratory based, osteology focused, and lacking public engagement, a view partially supported by the definition on the American Board of Forensic Anthropology (ABFA) website. As discussed in Chapter 1, the ABFA definition highlights methodology and fails to reference forensic anthropology's relevance to “wider publics or … interactions with relatives and survivors of violence” (p. 18). This oversight is unfortunate.

The differences between domestic casework and the investigation of international human rights violations are expounded in this volume and are undeniable. Yet, domestic casework also regularly requires collaboration with the public and a holistic approach beyond that of using archaeological techniques at crime scenes. Consider, for example, forensic anthropologists’ interactions with family members of identified decedents and missing persons; their work identifying victims of mass disasters, undocumented migrants, or remains from cemeteries disrupted after natural disasters; or the potential for vicarious trauma associated with continuously confronting human violence and mortality. Regarding international work, Fondebrider (Chapter 2) emphasizes that “before being a forensic anthropologist, one is an anthropologist with the benefit of a holistic, more comprehensive approach than the one held by other scientific disciplines” (p. 38). While perhaps more conspicuous for anthropologists working abroad, this fact also is true for those working domestically, and the inclusion of this perspective would have strengthened the editors’ claim that this volume “looks toward a more integrated anthropology of the dead body” (p. 7).

Nonetheless, Disturbing Bodies is an exceptional start to a conversation about anthropological work with human remains. Intradisciplinary and introspective, it challenges anthropologists to (re)consider how, why, and the ultimate professional and personal consequences of this work. Echoing and expanding Martin (Chapter 9, p. 168), this volume is “essential reading” for anthropologists and would generate important discussion in forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, and mortuary archaeology courses or any advanced anthropology seminar.