Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Alexa Hagerty, "Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains" (Crown, 2023)
Date: January 6, 2026
Host: Kellen McFall
Guest: Alexa Hagerty

Overview

This episode explores the intersection of genocide, forensic anthropology, and memory through Alexa Hagerty’s acclaimed book, Still Life with Bones. Blending memoir, anthropology, and investigative journalism, Hagerty delves into her experiences working with forensic teams in Guatemala and Argentina who exhume mass graves, identify human remains, and work with the families of the disappeared. The conversation illuminates the painstaking process of forensic exhumation, ethical obligations toward both the dead and the living, the deep political roots of this work, and the personal transformation such work demands.

Guest Background & Entry into Anthropology

• Alexa Hagerty’s academic journey:
  • Initially interested in psychology, philosophy, and history; anthropology came later (03:01).
  • Influenced by reading the work of Charles Briggs and Clara Mantini Briggs on medical anthropology.
  • Studied at Berkeley under Charles Briggs.

Quote (Hagerty, 03:01):
"I remember one of my professors as an undergrad saying that she thought I might enjoy taking an anthropology class and thinking to myself, no, I don't. That doesn't sound very interesting. It sounded kind of dusty."

How the Project Began

• Began in Argentina studying human trafficking, but became captivated by the Argentine forensics team and their story (04:16).
• Initial fieldwork was for dissertation research, intending an academic book; the public-facing project was inspired by local advice not to let the history be forgotten (05:09).

Quote (Hagerty, 05:09):
"What happened here, referring to the genocide in Guatemala, you know, can't be forgotten...I knew early on I thought, well, I'll certainly write an article that's public facing..."

Ethical Practice and Safety

• Use of pseudonyms is standard but acutely necessary in contexts like Guatemala, where victims and perpetrators live side-by-side and impunity persists (06:25).

Quote (Hagerty, 06:25):
"People would tell me about walking past the house of a perpetrator every day on the way to pick up...kids from school...It becomes not just a matter of sort of anthropological practice, but a vital matter of safety."

The Exhumation Process: Practical Realities

(08:12 – 13:38)

• Sites vary—urban, rural—often located through community memory, physical landscape analysis, or rare technological aids.
• Involves careful, labor-intensive excavation: identifying grave sites, meticulous documentation, removing and transporting remains, reconstructing forensic profiles, and DNA analysis.
• DNA matching requires teams to work with families for reference samples.

Quote (Host, 10:58):
"The word that comes to mind is painstaking. Painstaking is kind of metaphorical, but in other words kind of practical."

Quote (Hagerty, 11:26):
"You have to do thing after thing after thing...exposing the remains, cleaning them off without moving them...document very precisely...removing the remains...make this forensic profile...collect DNA samples from surviving family members...It's just an incredible process of labor."

Reading the Bones: Apprenticeship in Forensic Anthropology

(13:38 – 18:08)

• Experienced practitioners can "read" life and death in bones—age, trauma, past injuries, lifestyle clues (e.g., signs of weaving).
• Training combines formal teaching, hands-on apprenticeship, and adaptation beyond standard Western forensic textbooks, which often fail to represent diversity (17:17).
• Touch (haptic sense) is used alongside visual analysis.

Quote (Hagerty, 13:38):
"Watching what an experienced forensic anthropologist would experience, forensic practitioner can read in bones is staggering. There's all kinds of ways in which life and death are imprinted in bones."

Political and Historical Foundations of Forensic Exhumation

(18:38 – 26:18)

• The field of forensic exhumation for human rights originated in Argentina post-dictatorship (1984); before, crude, damaging excavations were done.
• Mothers of the disappeared reached out to international science for help; Clyde Snow (US practitioner) helped found rigorous forensic approaches.
• The initial Argentine team formed from students with little experience but strong political motivation (26:18).

Quote (Hagerty, 18:38):
"To learn that it really came into being in 1984 in Argentina, that surprised me and I was so curious...So a group of students, medical students, but mostly anthropology students, archaeology students...came and started to help Clyde Snow do this."

Quote (Luis Fonda Bridare, via Hagerty, 25:20):
"Clyde had all of the science, but, like, the students had the politics."

Family-Centered Forensic Practice

(26:56 – 28:39)

• Families led the push for truth and identification; teams collaborate closely, sometimes with overlapping identities (team members with missing relatives).
• This "family-centered" model distinguishes Latin American forensic science.
• It’s a political act against impunity and erasure.

Quote (Hagerty, 26:56):
"It's the families who were pushing. The families were pushing the human rights agenda...families and communities are involved really in every step along the way...there is always a political act, an act against impunity at the heart of what they're doing."

The Role of Testimonial

(29:08 – 31:22)

• Testimonials go beyond interviews: they're public acts of storytelling, healing, and political resistance, often undertaken even when formal judicial routes are closed.
• Testimony is a call to action and ethically implicates the listener.

Quote (Hagerty, 29:08):
"A testimonial is a public storytelling of...someone's experience of oppression...It’s different because it's on the...terms of the speaker. And it also ethically implicates the listener."

Spiritual and Emotional Complexities: Grief, Closure, and Ritual

(31:22 – 40:15)

• The idea of "closure" is insufficient; grief is complex and ongoing—often exhumation opens emotional wounds even as it helps families.
• Exhumations themselves are sacred acts—a ritual of care and remembrance, meaningful even when no body is found.

Quote (Hagerty, 31:59):
"In my experiences of grief closure...never felt like closure described that even many years after loss..."

Quote (Hagerty, 37:21):
"Exhumation is really important because it recovers a body...But...most bodies will never be recovered...the fact that someone is hearing this oral history of their disappearance...is very powerful...That, I would say, is the ritual power of exhumations."

Personal Transformation and Challenges

(40:15 – 43:53)

• The work is emotionally taxing, sometimes traumatic for Hagerty herself, and highlights the extraordinary resilience of forensic teams.
• She realized she could not do the fieldwork indefinitely, but could contribute by bearing witness and sharing stories.

Quote (Hagerty, 40:38):
"In all honesty, I think probably traumatized and transformed are both accurate descriptions. This research was very difficult for me. I struggled often to do this research...I quickly realized that I...did not have what it would take to do that."

Critique of Anthropology as a Discipline

(43:53 – 48:30)

• Hagerty wrestles with anthropology’s colonialist roots, questioning its capacity to amplify the voices of the oppressed.
• She describes the frustration of knowing important accounts may not reach beyond an academic audience.

Quote (Hagerty, 43:53):
"These stories will help my research, but how will it benefit these women? It seems terribly wrong. And thoughts like these are slowly eating away at my relationship with anthropology."

On Writing and Reaching an Audience

(48:30 – 53:00)

• Writing accessible, publicly-engaged work is vital for Hagerty; she urges disciplines to incentivize clear, broad communication.
• Notes the paradox that accessible writing can be undervalued in academia.
• Recommends reading beautiful prose and poetry to develop writing skill.

Quote (Hagerty, 49:37/52:20):
"I truly believe that those of us who are fortunate enough to have our job be researching, thinking, teaching, this is really a privilege, and that the riches in our disciplines must be shared widely...the tip for writing is, I think, always the same...it's reading."

Reflection on the Possibility of Transformation and Courage

(54:42 – 57:32)

• Hagerty is inspired by families and forensic teams transforming grief into justice over decades.
• Stresses the importance of small acts of courage and slow, collective progress.
• Publishing for a broader audience was itself "a risk," but necessary.

Quote (Hagerty, 54:42):
"What is to be learned from the catastrophe of history? Can inheritance of violence be transformed?...I think that those are maybe the things I, maybe those are the ways in which I'm living into those questions as best I can. Imperfectly."

Recommendations for Further Reading

(58:03 – 59:39)

• Diane Nelson’s trilogy on Guatemala: A Finger in the Wound, Reckoning, Who Counts
• Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Human Matter
• Patricio Pron, My Father’s Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain
• Poetry: Javier Zamora’s Unaccompanied, works by Natalie Diaz

Hagerty's Current Work & Where to Find Her

• Now focusing on the human rights implications of emerging surveillance technologies, such as facial recognition.
• Exploring other forms of writing—fiction and poetry.
• Website: alexahaggerty.com | Twitter & Instagram: @AlexaHaggerty

Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On Apprentice Learning: "There are a lot of ways that this training happens. Some are formal ways...but there's also a lot of more apprenticeship based learning, more informal study..." (16:17)
• On Family Participation: "Families and communities are involved really in every step along the way. And that I think is one of the great contributions of Latin American forensic science..." (27:36)
• On Ritual Power: "When you are talking to families, you hear how powerful and how meaningful it is that the teams are there looking, looking for their person who...even when no one is found. That, I would say, is the ritual power of exhumations." (39:38)
• On Choosing Public Scholarship: "To publish a...book not with an academic press has felt like a risk. But I wanted to do it because I felt that the stories...needed to be shared with as many people as possible..." (56:40)

Conclusion

Alexa Hagerty's Still Life with Bones is not only an investigation into genocide, forensic science, and justice in Latin America, but also a powerful meditation on memory, grief, and the ethics of witnessing. This episode offers an intimate look at the human and political stakes of exhumation, the painstaking realities of forensic work, and one scholar’s honest reckoning with the moral obligations of her craft.

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