Date/Time: Thursday 4th November 2021, 4:00-5:00pm

Venue: Zoom

Technology, Identity, and Political Violence in Latin America - Dr. José Ragas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

 In this talk, I will examine how certain techniques and devices that emerged in the nineteenth-century (i.e. fingerprints, mug shots, and identity cards), played a significant role in contexts of political violence in Latin America. Originally designed to identify individuals and tracking their movements, these same instruments were repurposed decades later to identify human remains, disappeared bodies, and kidnapped individuals, expanding the initial repertoire to innovations such as DNA databases. By focusing on some cases in South America and the Andes, I aim to explain how technology was crucial in helping to restore the identity of victims between 1970 and 2000.

 Dr. José Ragas is Assistant Professor of Global History of Science and Technology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He is Ph.D. in History (University of California, Davis, 2015) and was a Lecturer in the Program in the History of Science and Medicine at Yale University, and Mellon Postdoc Fellow Associate in the Department of Science & Technology Studies at Cornell University (2015-7).  His current research is  on the transnational circulation of biometrics and other technologies of identification during the long Cold War and their dissemination in contexts of political violence and struggle for civil rights.

 All welcome but please register.