Buy One Get One: The Legal and Socio-Cultural Context of ‘Gifting’ Within the Australian Human Remains Trade
Today’s global human remains trade – how it operates on and offline, where remains come from, and how algorithmic amplification allows for complex networks to form between buyers, sellers, and middlemen – has seen an increasing amount of research and media attention. Underpinning this increasing int...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Ubiquity Press
2024-01-01
|
| Series: | Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://account.journal.caa-international.org/index.php/up-j-jcaa/article/view/137 |
| _version_ | 1797315807775031296 |
|---|---|
| author | Damien Huffer |
| author_facet | Damien Huffer |
| author_sort | Damien Huffer |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Today’s global human remains trade – how it operates on and offline, where remains come from, and how algorithmic amplification allows for complex networks to form between buyers, sellers, and middlemen – has seen an increasing amount of research and media attention. Underpinning this increasing interest is the growing realization that poorly regulated trafficking inflicts genuine psychological harm on the living (whether relatives of body donors or descendant communities), as well as accrues losses to the archaeological record or risks the jeopardization of crime scenes. Much of this work, however, has focused on the global north. Within the global south, Australia is recognized as an emerging market country for many categories of cultural heritage trafficking, including human remains. This paper reviews the function and socio-legal context of a specific seller’s tactic so far seen only among Australian human remains collectors, whereby photographs of human remains are offered for sale, with the bones themselves included as a “gift”. From a network analysis of text from a corpus of anonymized posts from Facebook, conducted using t-SNE and Voyant Tools, 11 key discourse themes are identified that point to how and why this sales tactic is used. Better understanding its function is a necessary first step to closing this loophole within Australian law, but also to identifying similar tricks at work within collector networks elsewhere. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T03:09:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b455cc3eb51a4a40a063904833b121ba |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2514-8362 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T03:09:11Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Ubiquity Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology |
| spelling | doaj.art-b455cc3eb51a4a40a063904833b121ba2024-02-13T07:37:03ZengUbiquity PressJournal of Computer Applications in Archaeology2514-83622024-01-017111512510.5334/jcaa.137135Buy One Get One: The Legal and Socio-Cultural Context of ‘Gifting’ Within the Australian Human Remains TradeDamien Huffer0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4027-1772School of Social Science, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 4067, QLD, Australia; Department of History, Carleton University, Ottawa, K1S 5B6, ONToday’s global human remains trade – how it operates on and offline, where remains come from, and how algorithmic amplification allows for complex networks to form between buyers, sellers, and middlemen – has seen an increasing amount of research and media attention. Underpinning this increasing interest is the growing realization that poorly regulated trafficking inflicts genuine psychological harm on the living (whether relatives of body donors or descendant communities), as well as accrues losses to the archaeological record or risks the jeopardization of crime scenes. Much of this work, however, has focused on the global north. Within the global south, Australia is recognized as an emerging market country for many categories of cultural heritage trafficking, including human remains. This paper reviews the function and socio-legal context of a specific seller’s tactic so far seen only among Australian human remains collectors, whereby photographs of human remains are offered for sale, with the bones themselves included as a “gift”. From a network analysis of text from a corpus of anonymized posts from Facebook, conducted using t-SNE and Voyant Tools, 11 key discourse themes are identified that point to how and why this sales tactic is used. Better understanding its function is a necessary first step to closing this loophole within Australian law, but also to identifying similar tricks at work within collector networks elsewhere.https://account.journal.caa-international.org/index.php/up-j-jcaa/article/view/137australiafacebookhuman remains traffickingdiscourse analysist-snevoyant tools |
| spellingShingle | Damien Huffer Buy One Get One: The Legal and Socio-Cultural Context of ‘Gifting’ Within the Australian Human Remains Trade Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology australia human remains trafficking discourse analysis t-sne voyant tools |
| title | Buy One Get One: The Legal and Socio-Cultural Context of ‘Gifting’ Within the Australian Human Remains Trade |
| title_full | Buy One Get One: The Legal and Socio-Cultural Context of ‘Gifting’ Within the Australian Human Remains Trade |
| title_fullStr | Buy One Get One: The Legal and Socio-Cultural Context of ‘Gifting’ Within the Australian Human Remains Trade |
| title_full_unstemmed | Buy One Get One: The Legal and Socio-Cultural Context of ‘Gifting’ Within the Australian Human Remains Trade |
| title_short | Buy One Get One: The Legal and Socio-Cultural Context of ‘Gifting’ Within the Australian Human Remains Trade |
| title_sort | buy one get one the legal and socio cultural context of gifting within the australian human remains trade |
| topic | australia human remains trafficking discourse analysis t-sne voyant tools |
| url | https://account.journal.caa-international.org/index.php/up-j-jcaa/article/view/137 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT damienhuffer buyonegetonethelegalandsocioculturalcontextofgiftingwithintheaustralianhumanremainstrade |