Forensics, DNA Testing and the Disappeared in Latin America

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Speakers: Vivette García Deister, Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Eden Medina, Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Moderated by: Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Professor of the History of Science and Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico

In recent years technologies such as DNA analysis have become an essential tool in the search for the disappeared throughout Latin America. Groups of forensic anthropologists, crime scene investigators, and mothers of the disappeared rely equally on the power of forensic methods to identify the missing. As the number of disappeared in Mexico alone surpasses 100,000 in the last decade, belief in the power of science to identify found bodies has augmented. Yet, what happens when the promise of science is challenged, or science fails? In this talk two science and technology scholars explain how the use of DNA to locate bodies in Mexico and Chile faces both new opportunities and challenges.

Vivette García Deister is a Professor of Science and Technology Studies in the Department of Evolutionary Biology at UNAM. Her work looks at the intersection of race, nation, gender and science, combining historical, philosophical, and social studies of science. She is currently applying qualitative and comparative methodologies to the study of biomedical and forensic genetics in Latin America. Professor García Deister holds BS degree in Biology, and master's and PhD degrees in the Philosophy of Science from UNAM. She is the editor of ADN, protagonista inesperado. Promesas y realidades de la investigación genética ante nuestra crisis forense (2022).

Eden Medina is Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. Her work uses technology as a means to understand historical processes and she combines history, science and technology studies, and Latin American studies in her writings. Her current book project, Bones and Lives: Making and Unmaking Truth After Dictatorship (Duke University Press, under contract), studies how nations use science and technology to address histories of dictatorship and state violence. Medina is the author of the award-winning Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile (MIT Press, 2011), She holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University, a master in studies of law from Yale Law School, and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT.

Gabriela Soto Laveaga is Professor of the History of Science and Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico at Harvard University. Her research and teaching interests include modern Latin America, the intersection of science and culture, public health, and scientific and medical exchange in the Global South. Her first book, Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects and the Making of the Pill, won the Robert K. Merton Best Book Prize in Science, Knowledge, and Technology Studies from the American Sociological Association. Her second monograph, Sanitizing Rebellion: Physician Strikes, Public Health and Repression in Twentieth Century Mexico, examines the role of healthcare providers as both critical actors in the formation of modern states and as social agitators. Her latest book project seeks to re-narrate histories of twentieth century agriculture development aid from the point of view of India and Mexico. She has held numerous grants, including those from the Ford, Mellon, Fulbright, DAAD, and Gerda Henkel Foundations. Most recently she was a member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, 2019-2020.

Presented in collaboration with Department of the History of Science