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"Disappearance"
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Forced Disappearance as a Collective Cultural Trauma in the Ayotzinapa Movement
The disappearance of 43 students of the teachers’ training college at Ayotzinapa in 2014 has inspired a broad social movement. Ethnographic work and interviews conducted at several of the demonstrations to show solidarity with the parents of the students reveal that their forced disappearance has been framed by participants as a collective cultural trauma. The politicization of this trauma has led to a change in the relationship between citizens and public institutions and produced a new social narrative.
La desaparición de 43 estudiantes de la escuela de formación de profesores en Ayotzinapa en 2014 inspiró un amplio movimiento social. Trabajo etnográfico y entrevistas realizadas durante varias de las manifestaciones para mostrar solidaridad con los padres de los estudiantes revelan que su desaparición forzada ha sido enmarcada por los participantes como un trauma cultural colectivo. La politización de este trauma ha llevado a un cambio en la relación entre los ciudadanos y las instituciones públicas y ha producido una nueva narrativa social.
Journal Article
From Commitment to Compliance: The Discursive Challenge to Ending Enforced Disappearances in Democratic Argentina
Enforced disappearances occur almost every year in democratic Argentina (over 200 since 1983). Yet Argentina has made extensive legal commitments to end the practice and its strong human rights movement has pushed for these commitments and subsequent compliance. So, why has compliance been so difficult to achieve in Argentina? I argue that enforced disappearances in democracy produce powerful government counterframes that significantly impede human rights advocates’ efforts to ensure treaty compliance. These counterframes are reinforced by judicial ambiguity and fragment human rights advocates’ responses. This article contributes to the literature on how countries move from human rights commitment to compliance. It is based in a qualitative case study of Argentina, drawing on an analysis of 3,565 news articles on five cases of enforced disappearance that occurred under democratic governments, 22 in-depth interviews, secondary material, and two decades of research on police violence in Argentina.
Journal Article
The Geography of Repression and Opposition to Autocracy
State repression is a prominent feature of nondemocracies, but its effectiveness in quieting dissent and fostering regime survival remains unclear. We exploit the location of military bases before the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile in 1973, which is uncorrelated to precoup electoral outcomes, and show that counties near these bases experienced more killings and forced disappearances at the hands of the government during the dictatorship. Our main result is that residents of counties close to military bases both registered to vote and voted “No” to Pinochet’s continuation in power at higher rates in the crucial 1988 plebiscite that bolstered the democratic transition. Potential mechanisms include informational frictions on the intensity of repression in counties far from bases and shifts in preferences caused by increased proximity to the events. Election outcomes after democratization show no lasting change in political preferences.
Journal Article
Finding ways of searching for the disappeared: the information practices of the families in Colombia
PurposeThis study aims to explore and identify the information-seeking process and practices of those searching for the forcefully disappeared in Colombia. It answers the questions; how do families in Colombia seek information about a disappearance, how is this seeking process mediated and how are information barriers dealt with?Design/methodology/approachBased on document analysis and interviews with families and NGO representatives, this bottom-up study explores the trajectory of the families' information-seeking process to highlight the most salient information practices.FindingsA general trajectory of a search for information is laid out. The overwhelming barriers to information forces families to carry the burden of becoming information providers. NGOs provide situated learning on how to document a disappearance and deal with the state. This knowledge is passed on to families creating communities of practices. The information produced here becomes the main source of knowledge about this crime.Originality/valueIt makes a new contribution to the field of information practices by introducing the context of enforced disappearances using the example of Colombia, identifying a significant information-seeking process.
Journal Article
Reevaluating the timing of Neanderthal disappearance in Northwest Europe
Elucidating when Neanderthal populations disappeared from Eurasia is a key question in paleoanthropology, and Belgium is one of the key regions for studying the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. Previous radiocarbon dating placed the Spy Neanderthals among the latest surviving Neanderthals in Northwest Europe with reported dates as young as 23,880 ± 240 B.P. (OxA-8912). Questions were raised, however, regarding the reliability of these dates. Soil contamination and carbon-based conservation products are known to cause problems during the radiocarbon dating of bulk collagen samples. Employing a compound-specific approach that is today the most efficient in removing contamination and ancient genomic analysis, we demonstrate here that previous dates produced on Neanderthal specimens from Spy were inaccurately young by up to 10,000 y due to the presence of unremoved contamination. Our compound-specific radiocarbon dates on the Neanderthals from Spy and those from Engis and Fonds-de-Forêt demonstrate that they disappeared from Northwest Europe at 44,200 to 40,600 cal B.P. (at 95.4% probability), much earlier than previously suggested. Our data contribute significantly to refining models for Neanderthal disappearance in Europe and, more broadly, show that chronometric models regarding the appearance or disappearance of animal or hominin groups should be based only on radiocarbon dates obtained using robust pretreatment methods.
Journal Article
Against the Evils of Democracy: Fighting Forced Disappearance and Neoliberal Terror in Mexico
On 26 September 2014, Mexican police forces in Iguala, Guerrero, attacked and abducted four dozen students known as normalistas (student teachers); some were killed on the spot and the rest were never seen again. Within and beyond Mexico, rights activists immediately raised the alarm that the normalistas had joined the country's growing population of \"the disappeared,\" now numbering more than 28,000 over the last decade. In this article, I draw from a growing scholarship within and beyond critical geography that explores forced disappearance as a set of governing practices that shed insight into contemporary democracies and into struggles for constructing more just worlds. Specifically, I explore how an activist representation of Mexico's normalistas as \"missing students\" opens up new political possibilities and spatial strategies for fighting state terror and expanding the Mexican public within a repressive neoliberal and global order. I argue that this activism brings to life a counterpublic as protestors declare that if disappearance is \"compatible\" with democracy, as it appears to be within Mexico, then disappeared subjects demand new spaces of political action. They demand a countertopography where the disappeared citizens of Mexico make their voices heard. Activists demonstrate such connections as they compose countertopographies for counterpublics across the Americas landscape of mass graves, prisons, and draconian political economies, mostly constructed in the name of democracy and on behalf of securing citizens. Understanding how Mexico's activists confront the intransigent problems of state terror, spanning from dictatorships to democracies, offers vital insights for struggles against policies for detaining and disappearing peoples there and elsewhere in these neoliberal times.
Journal Article
Otto Normal's Monsterton: The Disappearance of White Pine Beach (Monsterton, Book 1)
Trade Publication Article
The Ambiguous Loss Inventory Plus (ALI+): Introduction of a Measure of Psychological Reactions to the Disappearance of a Loved One
Background: The disappearance of a significant person is an ambiguous loss due to the persistent uncertainty about the whereabouts of the person. Measures specifically capturing the psychological consequences of ambiguous loss are lacking. Therefore, this study aimed to develop the Ambiguous Loss Inventory Plus (ALI+) and evaluated its suitability for use with relatives of missing persons. Methods: ALI+ items were generated based on established measures for prolonged grief symptoms and literature on psychological responses to ambiguous loss. Eight relatives of missing persons (three refugees, five non-refugees) and seven international experts on ambiguous loss rated all items in terms of understandability and relevance on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very well). Results: On average, the comprehensibility of the items was rated as high (all items ≥ 3.7). Likewise, all items were rated as relevant for the assessment of common responses to the disappearance of a loved one. Only minor changes were made to the wording of the items based on the experts’ feedback. Conclusions: These descriptive results indicate that the ALI+ seems to cover the intended concept, thus showing promising face and content validity. However, further psychometric evaluations of the ALI+ are needed.
Journal Article
The Resurgence of Enforced Disappearances in the Aftermath of the July 15, 2016 Failed Coup Attempt in Turkey: A Systematic Analysis of Human Rights Violations
After the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016, Turkey rapidly adjusted its national security strategies to align with the principles of a security state, resulting in a notable increase in human rights violations during the declared State of Emergency. Enforced disappearances, previously used by the State against Kurdish dissidents in the 1990s, resurfaced as a brutal method in the name of “State survival” following the failed coup attempt. This research examined the systematic and organized nature of these enforced disappearances, their prevalence, specific targets, and the human rights abuses resulting from this practice. Twenty cases of enforced disappearances that occurred after July 15, 2016, were analyzed to achieve this. Three main themes emerged from the analysis: (1) enforced disappearance methods, (2) ineffective investigation, (3) torture. The examination revealed that enforced disappearances followed a systematic and widespread pattern. The narratives highlighted commonalities in the methods of disappearances, a preference for individuals affiliated with the Gülen Movement, and the subjecting of victims to severe violations, including torture. Fundamental human rights should have remained non-derogable even during the State of Emergency, as international human rights treaties to which the Turkish State is a signatory protect them.
Journal Article