ABSTRACT
How can we understand the frameworks of violence that make the widespread practice of disappearance possible and thought of, to some extent, as acceptable? This is the question that this chapter seeks to answer. Through an analysis of the logics of disappearance in north-eastern Mexico, we point out the importance of contextualising these logics within the conditions of violence in which the disappearances take place. This led us to propose the concept of the ‘violence regimes’, the fertility of which is argued for in the chapter. We consider the violence regimes, which refers to the formal and informal rules governing the access, use and circulation of violence, to be a tool which allows us to specify the conditions in which disappearances take place. At the same time, the concept opens a door to thinking about the contexts of disappearances in other environments and to construct a common vocabulary around the phenomenon.
The research results presented here are the product of the work of the Observatorio sobre Desaparición e Impunidad en México (Observatory on Disappearances and Impunity in Mexico, ODIM for its Spanish initials). This is a collaborative initiative between academic institutions based in Mexico (IIJ-UNAM and FLACSO-Mexico) as well as internationally (the Human Rights Programme of the University of Minnesota and the University of Oxford), civil society organisations, and collectives of families of the victims in north-eastern Mexico.
