Becoming a “Searcher” ("buscadora") in Necropolitical Mexico: Trajectories into Victimhood and Activism in the Aftermath of Forced Disappearance

My paper analyses the ways in which relatives of disappeared people in Mexico reshape their subjectivity in the aftermath of atrocity by embracing political action. I focus on the figure of the “searcher” ("buscadora"), which I theorise as type of “victim-activist”, a subject of politics and bureaucratic government who embodies aspects of both agency and subjection.

I discuss data from in-depth interviews with relatives (mainly mothers or sisters) of the disappeared who participate in grassroots collectives (colectivos de búsqueda) and short-term ethnographic observations of their political activities. Drawing from interactionist and feminist theories of becoming, I discuss three moments in the recrafting of their selves as “searchers”: 1) their experience of stigma in a necropolitical context of widespread violence and social denial of it; 2) encounters with bureaucrats that are marked by suspicion and indolence; 3) their discovery of searching collectives that not only provide assistance, but also serve as spaces where counter-hegemonic narratives and memories of violence are collectively constructed.

I conclude by presenting two narratives through which searchers make sense of their trajectories into politics, and which I argue can help us problematise liberal understandings of reparation and victims' rights. For some, activism is framed as agentic and emancipatory, as a way of regaining control over their lives, attaining recognition, and contributing to the emergence of a less violent society. But for others, activism is a burden at best or a retraumatising experience at worst. For them, political action is not a choice but an unwanted imposition, a painful obligation that stresses how senseless and unjustifiable their suffering is.