01/17/2024
Mark your calendars! Our 2nd spring 2024 colloquium lecture will be on March 28 at The Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at UC at 4pm. Dr. Alexis T. Boutin will present "Exploring Disability and Restoring Social Memory in Early 20th Century California: A Community-Based Research Project at the Sonoma Developmental Center Cemetery."
During its 127 year history, the Sonoma Developmental Center served thousands of residents who would today be described as developmentally or physical- ly disabled, mentally ill, or deviating from social norms. Between 1892-1960, its cemetery received the remains of nearly 2000 residents – after which its use ceased and gravemarkers were removed. Our research project aims to work collaboratively with stakeholders to document and preserve the cemetery as a site of social memory and cultural heritage. Using non-invasive bioarchaeological methods, we reconstruct the contextualized biographies of several early 20th century residents buried in the cemetery to under- stand their experiences in life and death through the lenses of disability and health.
Dr. Boutin is a broadly trained anthropologist whose research draws from biological anthropology, archaeology, and social theory, thus bridging the anthropological subfields. Dr. Boutin uses human skeletal remains, archaeological contexts, and ancient texts to explore embodied personhood in all of its iterations--gender, s*x, age, class, kin relations, religion, etc.--interpreting these personhoods by means of fictive osteobiographical narratives, which are framed in terms of a life course model.
