In this episode of LawPod, clinical psychologist and forensic anthropologist Dr Shari Eppel discusses her work finding, exhuming and identifying the remains of the disappeared of Matabeleland, Zimbabwe.  Dr Beatrice Canossi and Mitchell Institute Fellow: Rights and Social Justice Dr Lauren Dempster speak to Shari about how she became involved in efforts to recover the disappeared, her experience of training a local team in this, the importance of recovering the disappeared for families and communities, and the challenges encountered when trying to recover the disappeared.

Please note this episode contains discussion of death and mass violence, including torture and rape.

LawPod is a weekly podcast based in the School of Law at Queen’s University Belfast, providing a platform to explore law and legal research in an engaging and scholarly way.

Listen to the podcast here.

This podcast episode was recorded in March 2025 during Shari’s visit to Belfast as part of the Transitional Justice Cluster event that was held on 4 March 2025.  The Cluster welcomed three guests whose work focuses on issues of human rights and state violence including Shari, Dr Sabrina Villenave, University of Manchester, and Rainer Huhle, co-founder of the Nuremberg Human Rights Centre.  Read more about the event here.