Book Review: In Crime’s Archive: The Cultural Afterlife of Evidence
| Author | Leslie J Moran |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0964663919844119 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
Social & Legal Studies
2019, Vol. 28(4) 560–569
Book Reviews
ª The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663919844119
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KATHERINE BIBER, In Crime’s Archive: The Cultural Afterlife of
Evidence. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019, pp. 205, ISBN 978-1-138-92711-7, £115 (hbk).
Katherine Biber’s study of criminal evidence asks and answers questions about what
happens when objects come into the criminal justice process where they are subject to
forensic intelligibilities and technologies and then journey beyond it into wider culture.
The objects she has encountered on her research journey range from a specimen jar that
contains preserved maggots taken from the body of a murder victim, to doll house-size
recreations of scenes of violent and unexplained death, to artwork that invites viewers to
enter a mortuary fridge to view pictures relating to mass atrocities. Photographs – of
crime scenes, broken bodies, and blood stains – and, of course, portraits of those accused
of crimes are another ubiquitous category of forensic object that her inquiry engages.
The theoretical framework for Biber’s study is set out in the ‘Introduction’. Cornelia
Visemann’s pioneering study, Files: Law and Media Technology (2008) is one of the
important anchor points. Another is Derrida’s Archive Fever (1996). The ‘cultural turn’
in the social sciences (Roseneil and Frosh, 2012) and its manifestation in both legal and
criminological research are other influences that have shaped the project.
The rest of the book takes the form of a variety of case studies. Each one is a
beautifully written study of ‘evidence’ explored through a number of contemporary
cultural events and institutions. The largest number of chapters focuses on exhibitions
in museums and art galleries. They incorporate objects that have been classed as evi-
dence during the forensic process, objects that are part of forensic technology, together
artworks, some of which are specially commissioned, others that are artworks made by
artists already working on and with the forensic imagination.
Chapter 2 explores these matters by way of a number of exhibitions that have drawn
upon a forensic photography archive of the New South Wales Police force in Sydney,
Australia. Chapter 5 focuses on two London-based exhibitions: one staged by the Well-
come Collection1 called ‘Forensics’; the other by the Museum of London entitled, ‘The
Crime Museum Uncovered’, based on a collection of objects accumulated...
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