Disappearances in Mexico: From the 'Dirty War' to the 'War on Drugs'

by Silvana Mandolessi (Editor), Katia Olalde Rico (Editor)

Overview

This volume presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the practice of disappearances in Mexico, from the period of the so-called ‘dirty war’ to the current crisis of disappearances associated with the country’s ‘war on drugs’, during which more than 80,000 people have disappeared. The volume brings together contributions by distinguished scholars from Mexico, Argentina and Europe, who focus their chapters on four broad axes of enquiry. In Part I, chapters examine the phenomenon of disappearances in its historical and present-day forms, and the struggles for memory around the disappeared in Mexico with reference to Argentina. Part II addresses the political dimensions of disappearances, focusing on the specificities that this practice acquires in the context of the counterinsurgency struggle of the 1970s and the so-called ‘war on drugs’. The third section situates the issue within the framework of human rights law by examining the conceptual and legal aspects of disappearances. The final chapters explore the social movement of the relatives of the disappeared, showing how their search for disappeared loved ones involves bodily and affective experiences as well as knowledge production. The volume thus aims to further our understanding of the crisis of disappearances in Mexico without, however, losing sight of the historic origins of the phenomenon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000539479
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/27/2022
Series:	Europa Country Perspectives
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	258
Sales rank:	624,918
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Silvana Mandolessi is associate professor of Cultural Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium and Principal Investigator of the ERC project ‘Digital Memories’.

Katia Olalde is an associate professor at the Art History Department, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM-ENES Morelia).

Table of Contents

The Editors and Contributors

Acknowledgements

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Introduction

Disappearances in Mexico: From the ‘dirty war’ to the ‘war on drugs’

Silvana Mandolessi

PART I Historical Dimensions of Disappearances

1 Responsibilities in the system of enforced disappearance of people in Argentina: A historical perspective

Emilio Crenzel

2 Recasting history to cast off shadows: State violence in Mexico, 1958-2018

Eugenia Allier Montaño, Camilo Vicente Ovalle and Juan Sebastián Granada-Cardona

PART II Political Dimensions of Disappearances

3 Disappearance and governmentality in Mexico

Pilar Calveiro

4 Violence regimes and disappearances: Some reflections from the northeast region of Mexico

Karina Ansolabehere and Álvaro Martos

PART III Legal Dimensions of Disappearances

5 State acquiescence to disappearances in the context of Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’

Lene Guercke

6 Fate and whereabouts: the two elements that make up the right to know about the victims of enforced disappearance

Rainer Huhle

PART IV Affective and Experienced Dimensions of the Search and the Social Mobilization for the Disappeared

7 Pedagogies of searching in contexts of dispossession

Carolina Robledo Silvestre

8 The right to search in the case of disappeared persons: A right constructed from below

Jorge Verástegui González

9 Memorialising absence: Memorials to the disappeared in Mexico

María de Vecchi Gerli

Index