ABSTRACT
The mechanisms and dispositifs that are used in enforced disappearances are modified according to the forms of the state and kinds of governmentality. During the 1970s, in Mexico, the practice of enforced disappearance was articulated according to a populist governmentality with a strong centralised and authoritarian state that used differential policies to treat dissent. These policies ranged from legal and illegal forms of repression to the use of co-opting practices and even the creation of consensus. As of 2008, this practice was inscribed within a neoliberal governmentality in which the state, penetrated by large legal and illegal corporations, became a fragmentary structure with relatively autonomous local powers, which can be deeply penetrated by global criminal networks. The resulting criminal-state makes it so that, in this context, violence that appears to be private should be thought of as public-private, and that the distinction between the practices of disappearance and enforced disappearance becomes diffused.
