A new book on the issues surrounding the trade of human remains online, which is a problem in Southeast Asia and more common and accessible than one thinks. I once saw a bowl made from a skull attempted to be sold on a Facebook expat group. The lead author is one of my former colleagues at the Australian National University who has worked on Vietnamese archaeological remains. You can purchase the books from the publisher bewlo, or through my Amazon affiliate link here.
People buy and sell human remains online. Most of this trade these days is over social media. In a study of this ‘bone trade’, how it works, and why it matters, the authors review and use a variety of methods drawn from the digital humanities to analyze the sheer volume of social media posts in search of answers to questions regarding this online bone trade. The answers speak to how the 21st century understands and constructs ‘heritage’ more generally: each person their own expert, yet seeking community and validation, and like the major encyclopedic museums, built on a kind of digital neocolonialist othering of the dead.
