The Four Logics of Disappearances in Mexico

Leigh Payne, of Oxford University, Discusses the Logics of Disappearances in a Post-transitional Democracy
Professor Leigh Payne
Professor Leigh Payne

The Observatory on Disappearances and Impunity in Mexico is an international academic and advocacy collaborative established in 2015 to investigate, analyze, and combat patterns of impunity regarding enforced disappearances in Mexico. Its three principal investigators, HRP Director Barbara Frey, Professor Leigh Payne of Oxford University, and Professor Karina Ansolabehere of the Institute for Legal Research (IIJ-UNAM) and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO-Mexico) have been working with undergraduate students, graduate students and alumni to explain disappearances in México as a means to bring an end to this terrible pattern of human rights violations.

This spring the Human Rights Program will be publishing a comprehensive web-based report and database discussing the UMN-based team's component of the project. The virtual launch of this website and the Human Rights Program’s findings will take place on Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 12:00 Central Time. Leading up to the report release, we feature a three-part series of blog posts written by key members of the Observatory team, originally posted to Observatorio Sobre Desaparición E Impunidad En México in Spanish and English. This final blog installment by Leigh Payne covers the four logics of disappearance. The English version is being reposted here with permission from the Institute for Legal Research at UNAM and FLACSO-México. 

Four Logics of Disappearance
(originally posted 11/11/2020)

In  October  2020,  the  British  Academy  Proceedings  Series  of  Oxford  University  Press accepted  for  publication  a  book  that  features  ODIM’s  work  on  post-transition disappearances.  In  addition  to  Mexico,  the  phenomenon  is  explorein  three  other  Latin American  countries  (Brazil,  El  Salvador,  and  Argentina)  through  the  work  of  scholars, practitioners,  and  relatives.  The  book  reveals  the  dynamics  of  disappearance  in  each context  while  also  looking  at  patterns  across  the  region.  It  further  develops  a  set  of  tools used  by  families  and  their  advocates  in  the  search  for  the  missing,  truth,  justice  and guarantees  of  non-repetition.  Several  ODIM  researchers  have  authored  chapters  in  the volume.

A central argument made in the volume is that the classic notion of ‘enforced disappearance’ may not be as applicable today as it was for addressing violations during the Holocaust and the Southern Cone authoritarian regimes of the 1970s and 1980s. Despite the emergence of democratic legislation, norms, institutions, political participation, and social mobilisation, disappearances   continue   in   post-transition   Latin   America.   Four   logics   explain   the persistence of disappearance: its clandestine nature; the construction of a ‘disposable’ person;  the  political  economy  utility;  and  ambiguous  loss  as  social  control.  The  book contends that to address the forms disappearance takes in the post-transition era requires an understanding of the logics behind them and efforts to undermine them.

Four Logics of Disappearance

Clandestine Acts of Disappearance. Democratic states, even more than their authoritarian predecessors, attempt to avoid the costs associated with political violence. Such states are pressured  to  comply  with  human  rights  standards.  Thus,  by  hiding  violations,  through 6clandestineacts of violence, states lower potential international reputation and legal costs.Domestically,  such  acts  can  also  defuse  the  costs  associated  with  protests  by  mobilised citizens and groups and institutional checks and balances. Where democratic states may continue  to  engage  in  political  violence  directly  or  indirectly,  it  will  most  likely  be  through clandestine,  rather  than  overt  human  rights  violations,  to  avoid  costs.  The  level  of disappearances may paradoxically increase after the transition, to hide political violence, as we observe in some countries in the region.

Constructing Disposable Peoples. To further avoid costs, the disappeared are not typically among  the  elite,  powerful,  and  mobilised  populations  of  the  region.  As  the  ODIM  study shows,   the   disappeared   person   tends   to   be   from   humble   backgrounds:   socially, economically,  and  culturally  marginalised.  Who  is  disappeared  is  further  associated narratively  with  transgressive  or  deviant  acts.  A  language  develops  that  serves  as  an explanation for their disappearance: ‘they are involved in something’ (está metido en algo). The  disappeared  person  is  blamed  for  the  disappearance.  They  lose  value  as  a  person, voice and rights and protection as a citizen. They are, thus, ‘disposable’; there is no reason to provoke concern or outcry for this loss. Constructing the missing as ‘disposable’ creates a permissible environment in which disappearance persists unaddressed and with impunity.

The  Political  Economy  of  Disappearance.  Related  to  ‘who’  is disappeared  isa corresponding  logic  of  ‘why’.  The  findings  from  the  ODIM  and  other  studies  link contemporary disappearances to labour. The unemployed and the underemployed may be lured into exploitative work for organised crime groups. Workers with particular skills –such as, mechanics, engineers, bricklayers, truck drivers --are forced to work in illegal production and  trafficking  operations,  building  tunnels  and  transporting  commodities.  Once  these workers have exhausted their utility (eg, the work is complete or the person becomes unable to  work),  they  are  disposable.  They are disappeared  to  hide  the  illegal  activity.  One operating cost for illegal enterprises is avoiding investigation and closure. Such enterprises can buy favours or silence from security forces, incorporate state officials into the business, or use violence or the threat of violence to avoid repercussions. Disappearances in remote 7mining   regions,   agricultural   areas,   and   urban   sweat   shops   may   follow   this   logic. Disappearance of sex workers, human rights defenders, and indigenous peoples provides a  way  to  hide  and  continue  illegal  activity  with  impunity.  The  political  economy  of disappearance  can  take  another  form  when  criminal  groups  remove  their  adversaries,  or competition, by killing and disappearing them. By doing so, they consolidate territorial and economic control in certain regions. Accompanying the clandestine act of disappearance is the conspiracy of silence and violent retaliation against those who try to escape or dare to reveal  what  they  know  or  witnessed.  Because  of  clandestine  linkages  within  the  state security  apparatus,  those  who  report  to  authorities  heighten  risks  to  their  own  personal security. 

Social  Control  through  Ambiguous  Loss.  Ambiguous  loss  is  the  uncertainty  and  lack  of information about a missing person; it acts as a form of social control. The missing person is  both  present  and  absent.  The  lack  of  closure  or  ability  to  move  forward  thwarts  the grieving process. Psychologists have found that ambiguous loss resulting from the absence of  information  can  have  a  paralysing  effect  on  relatives  of  the  disappeared.  The  findings from ODIM suggest that ambiguous loss  also weakens claim-making. Basic information--what happened, to whom, by whom—disappears with the person. State officials can ignore or discount claims of wrongdoing when they lack substantiation. They are even more likely to  do  so  when  they  associate  the  disappeared  person,  or  the  relative,  with  a  class  of ‘disposable  persons’.  The  four  logics  behind  disappearance  converge to  create  triple victimhood: the loss of a loved one; the assumed association with a deviant; and the inability to denounce the act because of lack of evidence. 

New Disappearances and New Tools

The  absence  of  knowledge –the  clandestine  nature  of  the  act  and  the  disappearance  of facts with the person --prevents us from claiming that contemporary Latin American states are  engaged  in  systematic  and  enforced  disappearances.  The  ODIM  study,  for  example, confirms that disappearances in Mexico are widespread, that the logics behind them used 8during authoritarian periods still prevail, and that state officials at every level of the security apparatus have been identified in isolated acts of disappearance. That information –while extremely troubling –is not sufficient to determine that the Mexican  state  has engaged  in systematic enforced disappearances.

Instead, it suggests that researchers need to examine a different kind of state involvement in post-transition disappearances. The novel approach that the book promotes is examining post-transitional states’ acquiescence in disappearance. This involves treating relatives with dignity, to take their claims of disappearance seriously, to prompt immediate searches for the missing person, to hold state officials accountable when they impede or obstruct such processes, to investigate the full details of the acts, to hold perpetrators –within the state or outside –accountable. 

Leigh Payne

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