ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the politics of evidence in the context of “missing persons” cases—suspected Islamic militants, separatists, and their sympathizers, allegedly abducted and detained by state military and intelligence services—in Pakistan. Examining evidence practices of human rights activists and families of the missing persons as “counterforensic” practices, the chapter examines how they assemble a documentary and a visual bricolage (composed of files and photographic evidence) in conditions of state secrecy and in absence of “hard” evidence. Broadly discussing the genealogy of forensics and the role of photography in its emergence, I suggest evidence practices are shaped by their political and historical contexts. The hegemonic forms they take over the long durée give them an aura of legitimacy as well as state authority. Evidence practices are inherently intertwined with how power is exercised, but, also, contested through them. They shape subjects but also provide means for them to resist the conditions imposed on them through these evidentiary forms.
