An Anthropology of Disappearance. Politics, Intimacies and Alternative Ways of Knowing

Abstract (English)

All over the world, people disappear from their families, communities and the state’s bureaucratic gaze, as victims of oppressive regimes, in accidents and natural catastrophes or while migrating along clandestine routes. Sometimes people deliberately disappear, to escape unbearable circumstances or to avoid criminal prosecution. Often the reasons remain unknown. This edited volume discusses the anthropological dimensions of human disappearances. It brings together scholars who engage ethnographically with disappearances in various cultural, social and political contexts, including: pervasive missingness and custodial disappearances in urban India (Atreyee Sen), disappearances in Mexico and feminist activism (Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo), a refugee camp in Kenya (Stefan Millar); the abduction of children during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain (Diana Marre, Jessaca Leinaweaver); missing persons in Israel (Ori Katz), undocumented migration across the Mediterranean and the English Channel (Saila Kivilahti, Laura Huttunen, Ville Laakkonen, Zuzanna Dziuban, Victoria Tecca); the Polish diaspora in Western Europe (Anna Matyska); and missing migrant mothers from Cape Verde (Heike Drotbohm). Departing from this empirical diversity, the book develops an analytic grip on the slippery category of “the disappeared”. It argues that ‘disappearance’ is an anthropologically productive concept that brings us face to face with profound questions about human life, absence and presence, life and death, rituals and mourning, liminality and structures, citizenship and personhood, protection and vulnerability, oppression and power, and economies. The book consists of an introduction, eleven contributions based on ethnographic fieldwork, policy research and media analysis, and an afterword by Antonius C.G.M. Robben. The introduction builds our conceptual framework by suggesting “an anthropology of disappearance” based on historical, theoretical and epistemological analysis. The chapters explore (1) political dimensions of disappearances, (2) “disturbed intimacies” and social reorganization, and (3) methodological, epistemological and ethical challenges when researching disappearances. Directed towards scholars and students in the field of anthropology and neighboring disciplines, the book also provides profound and up-to-date insights for practitioners, human rights activists and NGO officials into disappearances and their aftermaths.
In preparation for the book seminar, we will circulate the introduction and several chapters and engage in an in-depth discussion on disappearances in various political contexts across the globe. The conversation will include Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, Atreyee Sen, Heike Drotbohm, and potentially other contributors to the book, as well as insights from our discussant Maria José Lucero and the audience.