
LIVING WITH DISAPPEARANCE



About
The terms 'disappeared' and 'disappearance' emerged during the Argentine dictatorship in the 1970s, when the Argentine state kidnapped and killed those that it perceived to be a threat to its operations and ideological foundations. However, disappearance has been perpetrated systematically and for diverse rationale across the globe for centuries. As such, enforced disappearance has been a historical constituent element of violence linked to wider political, economic and cultural processes, including slavery, colonialism, the egregious political violence perpetrated in diverse settings during the Cold War, the kidnapping of women and girls for sexual slavery and the silencing of opposition to ecological and environmental activism.
Today, enforced disappearance is considered a serious human rights violation and a permanent form of torture. The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance entered into force in 2010, with the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances celebrated on 30 August. The juridical framework for disappearance then has become increasingly consolidated over time. Nevertheless, relatively little is known about how the relatives, communities and societies of those that are disappeared live disappearance, including in terms of its embodied, psychological and everyday impact. Testimony can be one approach to helping us understand what living with disappearance might mean, including in terms of physical and mental health and how individuals and societies cope with its ongoing consequences.
For example, Jimena's son was the victim of forced disappearance in the early 2000s in Colombia, most likely perpetrated by the country's far-right paramilitary forces within the context of the country's broader internal armed conflict. Jimena has lived for over two decades with the uncertainty of what happened to her son, with his living absence, his physical invisibility. Every morning Jimena prepares the breakfast table for herself and her son, placing upon it her son's favourite breakfast, before eating her breakfast alone. She then spends the day engaging with the state institutions mandated to search for her missing son - and for the hundreds of thousands of other disappeared Colombians. Her lunch and dinner follow the same patterns as her first meal of the day. She cooks for herself and her son, and anxiously waits for him to come back as she eats, hoping this will be the last day of his disappearance, a plate left on the table, replete with her son's favourite food. At night, before bed, she lights a candle, and leaves a cup of hot chocolate on the mantlepiece, in the hope that this will be her last day of not knowing where her son is, or whether he is dead or alive. Do Jimena's actions evidence psychological and physical coping mechanisms, symbolic gestures aimed at bringing her son home, forms of making meaning in a world now devoid of understanding and rules? What have been the consequences of her son’s disappearance on Jimena’s physical and mental wellbeing and health? Can we write of her experiences as violence? What do they reveal about violence as such? And what does this living with disappearance tell us about the world we inhabit, and most importantly, what responses do they demand from us?
Building on from previous initiatives that explored the conceptual and aesthetic challenges disappearance presents for our societies, along with funded research into what embodied conceptions of reconciliation means for lasting claims of justice, this next phase of our project aims to develop a network of core collaborators and the intellectual and operational framework that aims to understand living with disappearance from a trans-disciplinary perspective. Bringing together academics from the arts, humanities, medical sciences and social sciences from universities across the world, with renowned artists, cultural producers and policy and advocacy groups, so the aftermath of episodes of political violence and disappearance will be addressed and novel forms of response recommended and produced. In doing so, it will add further insight into the problem of extreme violence, which in turn adds further to the need to rethink what disappearance means in the 21st Century.

Inaugural
Workshop
The Living With Disappearance inaugural workshop will be held in the University of Bristol on July 24/25 2023. Cohosted by the Global Insecurities Centre at Bristol in working partnership with the Centre for the Study of Violence at the University of Bath, its aim will be to bring together a number of our networks affiliated members in order to work through the problematic and set in place a framework for future initiatives.
Attendees will include: -
Colin Barr, University of Notre Dame
Roddy Brett, University of Bristol
Terrell Carver, University of Bristol
Tim Cole, University of Bristol
Richard English, Queen’s University, Belfast
Brad Evans, University of Bath
Elise Feron, Tampere University
Dave Grimstead, Locate International
Lina Malagon, University of Wales, Trinity St. Davids
Chantal Meza, Independent Artist
Naomi Miller, Bristol Ideas
Catherine Panter-Brick, Yale University
Thia Sagherian-Dickey, Durham University

Our Network

Roddy Brett
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Chantal Meza
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Valerie Rousoux
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Elise Feron
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Samuel Weber
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

John Akomfrah
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

John Psathas
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Jake Chapman
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Bret Davies
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Gil Anidjar
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Dominic Gray
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Tim Cole
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Naomi Miller
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.

Dave Grimstead
Professor or Political Violence & Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, University of Bath.