Social representation and search processes of Central American migrants missing in their transit through Mexico

Abstract

Introduction

The work describes the struggle for representation and search for Central American migrants who disappeared in their transit through Mexico, in which state, criminal and social actors participate. Among the latter, the Committees of Relatives of Missing Migrants stand out.

Objective

The article aims to show how from a state knowledge-power (technical and statistical), a notion of disappearance is built that hides its structural dimension and tries to settle in common sense, while it is confronted by strategies of visibility of organizations of relatives that represent disappearance not as isolated figures (official discourse), but from systematic absence and as part of a broader social pain.

Method

From a qualitative and critical perspective, data generated through ethnographic and documentary fieldwork during 2014-2015 in Honduras and Mexico are analyzed. These are approached through critical discourse analysis and an ethnographic and political reconstruction of the strategic deployment of the Committees of Relatives of Missing Migrants.

Results

The phenomenon of the disappearance of migrants takes place in a transnational field in which dynamics of mobility and circulation of people and things are disputed, and which is defined by state, geopolitical, criminal and cultural dynamics associated with the actions of narco-state actors.

Conclusions

The irruption of the Committees of Relatives of Disappeared Migrants in the transnational field implies strategies of territorialization, incidence and search, as well as forms of enunciation that directly answer the official representations about the phenomenon of the disappearance of migrants.