Archaeology Cafe: (In)conclusions and Afterlives: The Material Lives of Migrant Remains in the US-Mexico Borderlands
Category: Event Calendar
Date and Time
- Tuesday, Dec 1, 2026 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Location
Archaeology Southwest
281 N Stone Ave
Details
Join us in-person at the Archaeology Southwest Headquarters in downtown Tucson, or online via Zoom Webinar, on Tuesday, December 1, 2026, as Gabriella Soto (Associate Teaching Professor and Honors Faculty Fellow, Barrett Honors Faculty, Arizona State University) presents "(In)conclusions and Afterlives: The Material Lives of Migrant Remains in the US-Mexico Borderlands."
In her recent book, Border Afterlives: Migrant Deaths, Forensic Investigations, and the Politics of Haunting, Soto described the systemic limits of forensic care available to presumed undocumented border crossers who die during their journeys into the United States. In this talk, she discusses the forensic process through the lens of material culture: from the role objects play in death investigations and forensic identifications, to the archaeological sensibilities developed by civilian volunteer groups who search for long-term missing and presumed deceased migrants in the border wilderness of Arizona and Texas. While "afterlives" in her book title referenced the postmortem journeys of people, here Soto considers object afterlives — where a view of objects in this contemporary mass-casualty event on the border might shed light on other fundamental archaeological questions about the role of objects in culture across time.
Doors open at 5:30 p.m.; the talk begins at 6:00 p.m.
This talk is part of Archaeology Café's 2026–2027 season, Among Friends: Conversations with Archaeologists, presented by Archaeology Southwest, a nonprofit dedicated to understanding and conserving places. Archaeology Café is an informal forum bringing lifelong learners together with experts. This season celebrates the community of researchers, students, neighbors, and friends who've grown up around Archaeology Southwest over nearly 40 years, with talks held at the Tucson headquarters, select talks also traveling to the S'edav Va'aki Museum in Phoenix, and all sessions streamed live on Zoom. Can't make it live? Recordings post to the Archaeology Southwest YouTube channel a few days later.
