ABSTRACT
The historical practices of archeological excavation and institutionalized containment of Indigenous dead in museums have been foundational to the formation of the American-Mexico militarized borderlands. Archeological excavation must be understood as a key surveilling technology in mediating national boundaries of land, identity, and belonging. Laws regulated the collecting and display of Native-American dead in national museums. A comparison of Arizona archeological records, newspaper articles, border patrol tactics, and forensic identification practices contextualizes the archeological removal of Indigenous dead as standing in direct correlation with the production of migrant deaths along the American-Mexico border. This approach uncovers how lasting and disappearance become important strategies for controlling this region of the country and lays bare the issues of remains repatriation, militarization, incarceration, immigration, and state violence. American excavation and institutionalized containment of the dead must be understood as enforcing and facilitating settler-colonial boundaries between life, death, land, and the body.
