In the 2024 Summer, Kellogg Doctoral Affiliate Laura Neftaly López-Pérez (political science) traveled to Mexico on a Kellogg Institute Graduate Research Grant to conduct research for her project “High-Risk Activism in Criminal Wars: The Collective Action of Families of Victims in Mexico.”
While violence and democracy are assumed to be antithetical, cases of gross human rights violations are increasingly common in democracies around the world. These forms of violence against unarmed populations include torture, forced displacement, homicide, and disappearance. In response, many families of victims collectively denounce this and demand accountability, which entails considerable risks of repression and retaliation. One of the most surprising yet overlooked facts about these responses is that it is predominantly families of disappeared persons who organize and engage in collective action to demand justice, and some families continue to demand justice for others even after locating their relatives. This is surprising because the chance of finding disappeared people decreases significantly as time passes, and because individuals are expected to demobilize after fulfilling their goals.
Based on this puzzle, I ask: Why does mobilization vary depending on the type of victimization? Why are most people who mobilize for justice for families of disappeared persons? Why do they stay mobilized even though the possibilities of locating their disappeared relatives constantly decrease, and sometimes even after finding them?
I argue that the uncertainty around the fate of their loved one and the solidarity forged during mobilization explains the sustained nature of the mobilization of families of victims of disappearance.
I look specifically at the case of Mexico, where a two-decade-long confrontation between state security forces and criminal organizations has resulted in the victimization of hundreds of thousands of persons. As of 2024, more than 350 thousand people have been killed, and more than 110 have been disappeared. Based on my previous work, I have documented the existence of more than 161 colectivos of relatives of disappeared persons versus 3 colectivos of relatives of victims of homicide.
My first step to gathering evidence to answer my research questions was through qualitative data. I conducted three months of fieldwork in five cities in Mexico: Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Toluca, and Ciudad Juárez. I also conducted virtual interviews with victims’ relatives in the states of Baja California, Guerrero, and Veracruz. In total, I guided 11 focus groups and 38 interviews with relatives of victims of disappearance and homicide (N=116), in which members of 18 colectivos of victims’ families participated. Additionally, I had multiple conversations with members of human rights organizations, activists, and journalists who accompany the colectivos. Lastly, during my fieldwork, I attended public demonstrations, catholic masses, and other commemorations for the disappeared persons, including the funeral of the mother of a disappeared young woman in Ciudad Juárez.
The list of colectivos represented qualitatively in my research are:
- Colectivo AMORES, in Monterrey.
- Colectivo Red Eslabones de Nuevo León, in Monterrey.
- Colectivo FUNDENL, in Monterrey.
- Colectivo Buscadoras de Nuevo León, in Monterrey.
- Colectivo Por Amor a Ellxs, in Guadalajara.
- Colectivo Huellas de Amor, in Guadalajara.
- Colectivo Entre el Cielo y la Tierra Oficial, Guadalajara.
- Colectivo Una Luz de Esperanza, in Guadalajara.
- Colectivo Flores en el Corazón, in Toluca.
- Colectivo Madres con Fe, in Ciudad Juárez.
- Colectivo FUNDEJ, in Jalisco.
- Colectivo Todos Somos Jorge y Javier, in Nuevo León.
- Colectivo Red Memoria y Lucha por los Periodistas Asesinados y Desaparecidos, in Veracruz.
My qualitative work produced four main findings to understand why most of the victims’ relatives that mobilize for justice are families of the disappeared and why many of them stay mobilized in the long term.
- Uncertainty
- Extended solidarity
- Emotional support
- Resistance to oblivion
Based on what I learned during my fieldwork, I designed a survey directed at relatives of victims of disappearance and homicide. The survey was distributed to the representatives of 23 colectivos in 13 Mexican states. These representatives sent the survey link to the members of their colectivos. The survey was conducted online and took between 10 and 15 minutes to answer. No personal information was asked about participants or their disappeared or assassinated relatives. Conducting this survey helps increase confidence in qualitative evidence by helping to decrease self-selection bias: 1) it decreased the cost of participation, making it more feasible to reach participants for whom attending an interview or focus group was difficult; and 2) being an anonymous survey, victims’ relatives who were afraid to participate in an interview or focus group could be more likely to participate. In fact, many members of colectivos who did not agree to participate in focus groups or interviews when I invited them decided to participate in the survey.