Our Faculty

Biography

Natalia Mahecha-Arango is a postdoctoral fellow in Latin American spatial history. She is a scholar of modern Latin America with experience as a human rights practitioner and researcher. Her book manuscript, Anonymous Death: Unidentified Dead Bodies, Enforced Disappearance, and Rights in the Afterlife (Colombia, 1970–2016), traces the historical evolution of state and civil society obligations concerning the care, identification, and dignified disposal of human remains in contexts of mass atrocity, paying particular attention to nameless individuals who were increasingly viewed as potential desaparecidos. Her research explores how diverse actors working to improve the management of unknown bodies extended—even into the afterlife—ideas about the human condition, citizenship, rights, kinship, and state responsibility. 

Mahecha-Arango is also interested in broader discussions on the protection of the dead, the significance of dignified mortuary practices in contexts of crisis (e.g., pandemics, war, and natural disasters), the care of the kinless deceased, as well as projects in public history and digital humanities.

Education

• PhD, MPhil, New York University
• BA, Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)

Curriculum Vitae