The stories bones tell. Collaboration between forensic teams and victims' relatives in the interpretation and ritual accompaniment of human remains in Guatemala.

This article focuses on the collaborative practices between forensic experts and victims' relatives through the exhumation process in Guatemala. In a context where there is still no real recognition of the victims by the state, and no national common narrative about the violence of the armed conflict, exhumations have been developed in the framework of transitional justice, as a tool for victim recognition as well as historical clarification. In a post-political violence context, the exhumation process produces knowledge and narratives about the past, through the scientific analysis of human remains as material evidence, the collection of testimony, and shared stories. Based on extensive ethnographic work conducted with civil society actors involved in exhumations, this article focuses on the dynamics of production and coexistence of scientific and subjective forms of interpretation of the remains, as well as scientific and ceremonial practices of treatment of the remains. We will question how different regimes of truth coexist around the interpretation of the bones, and how forensics scientists and victims' relatives collaborate to produce them.

A political dimension of grief: Individual and social healing after conflict.

Mass violence is often characterized by the disappearance of the victims' bodies, preventing families from mourning. In Latin America, the exhumation processes emerged partially as a response to this situation. The search for the dead has always been a political issue, as the mourning of the victim's relatives has been presented as a "humanitarian" objective and a peace-building tool, thus articulating individual and social healing. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Guatemala, this article questions the representations of the legacy of violence between generations, as well as local indigenous representations of mourning through appropriated notions such as trauma and susto.