Paper Title
Science and Social-Religious Ideologies: The Case of Autopsy in Palestine

Abstract
Autopsy is a medico-legal practice, performed on dead bodies by the forensic medicine system of the modern nation state. This systemparticipates in controllingcrime and disease, and therebyassists the state in maintaining social order.Inmy doctoral research, titled: "the social political Enlivening of the Palestinian Dead Body: the Case of the Palestinian Forensic Medicine Institute (PFMI)" (2012), it was found that in the Palestinian context, this practice was in usein different historical periods, under the control and oversight of different governing regimes. Drawing on ethnographic and archival data the presentation will examine and compare the political and social uses of autopsy across different historical periods of Palestine. The presentation will begin with the Ottoman Empire period (1885-1917);the British Mandate (1917-1948); the Israeli state (1948-1967)and simultaneous regimes of Jordan and Egypt until 1967; and the present-dayregimes of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli state (1994-2015).The presentation aims to examinehow science interacts with social context and religious norms. Furthermore, the presentation will reveal how was science and autopsy introduced to the local Palestinian society and which role the religious institute played through that intrduction? How were laws enacted, revised, and implemented during the different historical periods? How was autopsy performed and who were the agents for practicing autopsy? The first part of the presentation will review the historical roles played by autopsy and corpses in Palestine, while the second part will focus on developments in the forensic medicine practices between "Oslo Accords" (1993) until today. The presentation will trace the medico-legal paths through which dead Palestinian bodies pass between the death announcement and the grave. I argue that the revived dead body is re-read, re-written, and redefined by cooperating and competing powers, thereby producing a site wherein the borders of sovereignty over Palestinian land, society, and nation are renegotiated.