Voicing the aftermath: exhumations and reburials after ‘Gukurahundi’ in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe 1

In the 1980s in post-independent Zimbabwe, mass killings took place in the west of the country, a history that was a legacy of the liberation war and that remains largely hidden, as some of the perpetrators remain in power. Mass and shallow graves have resulted in family and community hauntings, now affecting descendants of the murdered. This article considers the professional, ad hoc forensic exhumations that have occurred at the requests of families and chiefs desperate to heal their ancestors, and the many voices that are unearthed along with the bones. One particular exhumation is the focus of the article, illustrating the interaction of families, spaces, the ancestor and the forensic scientist, set against the overbearing and repressive voice of the state.