Investigando con familiares de migrantes desaparecidos: de objetos/sujetos de estudio a coproductores de conocimiento

Abstract

Across Mexico and Central America, families of disappeared/missing persons are demanding to play a more active role in the articulation of the academic, journalistic, psychological, and humanitarian narratives that are being built upon their experience and struggles. This article describes the methodological dimension of a research project which gradually turned into a collaborative endeavour following the explicit demand of fifteen members of the Salvadoran Committee of Families of Deceased and Disappeared Migrants (Cofamide).As a result, Cofamide's members positioned themselves as knowledge producers, defining the research questions and co-analysing the data produced in order to rethink the political work developed by the Committee. Hence, the project problematized the epistemic violence of the traditional subject-object divide in research by using an assemblage of methodologies; such as Participatory Action Research, collaborative methods, and Black and Community Feminist approaches. The article will also discuss some key challenges and limitations faced throughout this process.

Enforced disappearances in the context of migration: A brief review of General Comment No.1 of the Committee against Forced Disappearances

“…We simply do not know anything more about these people. Faced with this situation, which has been analyzed, studied, and attempted to be documented for several years as IOM (2013,2022), Duhaime & Thibault (2017), Castilla (2018, Martinez (2021) and Laakkonen (2022) among many others, the United Nations Committee against Forced Disappearances took a step forward by adopting, on September 18, 2023, its first General Comment dealing specifically with "enforced disappearance in the migratory context" (Committee on Enforced Disappearances, 2023). This occurred primarily because the Committee is deeply concerned about the increasing trends of enforced disappearances in the context of migration, and because it notes with great concern that cases of enforced disappearances are frequently reported along various migration routes.…”