{"id":107,"date":"2026-07-30T20:29:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T01:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/?p=107"},"modified":"2026-08-20T18:41:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T23:41:34","slug":"el-giro-de-la-desaparicion-borders-and-boundaries-from-argentina-and-armenia-to-colombia-and-mexico%c2%b9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/?p=107","title":{"rendered":"El giro de la desaparici\u00f3n: Borders and Boundaries from Argentina and Armenia to Colombia and Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

El giro de la desaparici\u00f3n: Borders and Boundaries from Argentina and Armenia to Colombia and Mexico<\/h1><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Joseph Wager1<\/a><\/sup><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most widely studied case of disappearances2<\/a><\/sup> is that of the last c\u00edvico-militar<\/em> dictatorship in Argentina. The number of disappearances is generally recognized as 30,000. Resistance to this regime of terror has been influential domestically and internationally, from the human-rights report Nunca M\u00e1s<\/em> to the Madres de Plaza de Mayo<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Memorial
Tiles in Plaza Armenia. Buenos Aires. April 29, 2022. Photo by the author.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, the streets of Buenos Aires are dotted with multicolored tiles that honor the memory of the disappeared. In Buenos Aires\u2019s Plaza Armenia, tiles from 2015 bear the names of Argentines of Armenian descent who were disappeared under Argentine state terrorism.3<\/a><\/sup> The tiles, which prominently feature the Madres\u2019<\/em> iconic white head scarves, connect the dictatorship\u2019s beginning in 1976 to the centenario<\/em> of the genocide of Armenians in 1915. The tiles bring together seemingly disparate situations through the category of disappearance. I propose thinking through this as indicative of el giro de la desaparici\u00f3n<\/em>. This giro<\/em> is a methodological trend (as in the \u201clinguistic turn,\u201d \u201cmaterial turn,\u201d etc.) that speaks to the theorizing inherent to cultural products constellating around disappearance. I claim that women\u2014as searchers, as activists, and as cultural producers\u2014authorize the implicit and explicit connections in thinking with, through, and about el giro de la desaparici\u00f3n<\/em>. I will begin by discussing disappearances in contemporary Mexico in conversation with the tiles in Plaza Armenia, before moving to a recent Argentine novel about disappearances that sends readers to Colombia. In this way, I aim to perform the motion of el giro de la desaparici\u00f3n<\/em>, passing through Armenia, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico.

Argentina is associated with the dictatorship-driven disappearances of Latin America\u2019s 1970s and 1980s. Today, the highest rates of disappearance are taking place in a democracy: Mexico. The country crossed the threshold of 100,000 officially recognized disappearances in 2022. Disappearances in Mexico are quite different from those of Argentina\u2014in terms of the actors involved, the methods used, the people targeted. A major factor in Mexico\u2019s disappearances is migration. Yet, with the Argentine tiles in mind, let us point out that forced migrations catalyzing disappearance in Mexico are also part of the story of Armenians\u2019 arrival in Argentina: many of the Argentines of Armenian descent today are third- or fourth-generation immigrants who form part of the genocide-driven diaspora. Without creating facile equivalencies, many of the disappeared in Mexico are either Mexican migrants headed to the US or Central American migrants passing through Mexico on their way to the US. Central drivers of these migrations and the conditions that allow groups to carry out disappearances of migrants are intertwined, including the Guerra contra el narcotr\u00e1fico<\/em> in Mexico, US gun laws, US migration policies, US imperial history, and US-Mexico collaborations such as the Iniciativa M\u00e9rida.4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Urban
El ahuehuete la Glorieta de las y los desaparecidos. Mexico City. June 10, 2022. Photo by the author.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is another part of this story that contemporary Mexican disappearances make front and center. While men account for the majority of those who disappear, women constitute the vast majority of those who search. The disappeared are present through women\u2019s resistance. If disappearance also entails political presence, this is because of women\u2019s resistance (Denyer Willis 22).5<\/a><\/sup> The gendered separation of spheres of work is part of the story of women\u2019s search; the recurrent undervaluation and appropriation of that work, and of the types of marginalization built on and through such systemic undervaluation and appropriation, should not be separated from the eccentric motion of the giro de la desaparici\u00f3n<\/em>.

Women\u2019s search for the missing is \u201cstriking\u201d (Edkins xiii); and it is not confined to Mexico. Women have demonstrated that disappearance is at once a strategy of terror and a cultural idiom that ruptures boundaries\u2014<\/strong>epistemic, geographic, temporal. Part of a continuum that includes the Madres de Plaza de Mayo<\/em>, the searching collectives in Mexico demand consideration of the relationship between contemporary modes of understanding and contesting disappearance\u2014materially and discursively\u2014in relation to those used in the aftermath of dictatorship-driven disappearances.

One example of a cultural product that sees in disappearance at once a strategy of terror and a cultural idiom that ruptures boundaries is a 2019 novel by Argentine writer Mariana Enr\u00edquez. Nuestra parte de noche<\/em> complements the cultural work of the tiles in Plaza Armenia with an expansive literary account that illustrates the giro de la desaparici\u00f3n<\/em>. Enr\u00edquez\u2019s text opens under the last c\u00edvico-militar<\/em> dictatorship and blends the historical with the fantastic. In the opening section, we are introduced to Juan, a medium who is forced to work for the Orden<\/em>, a cabal set on immortality. Juan\u2019s access to the Oscuridad<\/em>, the other world, has seemingly been inherited by his son, Gaspar. The novel is perhaps a national allegory: Juan attempts to save Gaspar from being used as a medium by the Orden<\/em>, whose clandestine torture centers evoke those of the Argentine State; Gaspar\u2019s coming-of-age story, in parallel, mirrors the country\u2019s democratic transition.

A striking feature of this Argentine novel is the narrative gravity of events in Colombia. On November 13, 1985, mud and debris from the Nevado del Ruiz volcano covered the Colombian town of Armero, killing more than 20,000 people. The world watched in horror as a 13-year-old, Omaira S\u00e1nchez Garz\u00f3n,6<\/a><\/sup> suffered on live television, her agony protracted across three days as rescue workers were unable to save her. Omaira\u2019s tragic death figures prominently in Nuestra parte<\/em>: the novel\u2019s core group of young friends become \u201cobsesionados\u201d with her suffering (251). Is the trauma of witnessing Omaira\u2019s death an allusion to the trauma of post-dictatorship Argentina amid 30,000 disappearances?

Before answering this question, we must note that Colombia\u2019s 1985 was tumultuous. The country dealt with the tragedy in Armero one week after the (also) highly televised siege on the capital city\u2019s Palacio de Justicia<\/em>7<\/a><\/sup> (November 6-7). The events at the Palacio de Justicia are a key part of the discussion on disappearances in Colombia. At least twelve people who survived the attack were subsequently disappeared by government forces. And the events of November 1985 in Bogot\u00e1 and Armero unfolded in the midst of the country\u2019s internal armed conflict. This armed conflict8<\/a><\/sup> left more than 120,000 officially recognized disappeared persons. Thus, the emphasis on Omaira, who appears several times throughout Nuestra parte<\/em>, becomes a way to speak about suffering in both countries. The hypervisibility of her pain connects two contexts plagued by disappearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Exhibition
Exposition on Las Buscadoras la b\u00fasqueda de los desaparecidos tiene rostro de mujer. Centro de Memoria, Paz y Reconciliaci\u00f3n (Bogot\u00e1). September 1, 2022. Photo by the author.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There remains critical potential in the giro de la desaparici\u00f3n<\/em>, and the references to Colombia are part of a larger project in which Nuestra parte<\/em> is immersed. The novel also depicts the horrors of colonial violence in East Africa and genocidal campaigns of Argentine nation-building (gobernar es poblar<\/em>); is this an argument for gobernar es desaparecer<\/em>, as was the case for the disappearances under R\u00edos Montt in Guatemala? I read the novel as reinforcing the role of employing differential literacies to understand what disappearance makes thinkable together, without forsaking key contextual specificities. This is what disappearance offers as a cultural idiom, and its giro<\/em> from Buenos Aires to Armero, from Armenia to Mexico, indexes the power of those who resist disappearance to reveal unexpected links across transhistorical forms of violence and to shape new ways to tell stories that point to a future without disappearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"Person<\/figure>
\n

About the Author<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Joseph Wager<\/strong> is a PhD Candidate in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University, where he is writing a dissertation on disappearance in Colombia and Mexico. He holds a master’s in Literary Studies from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and a bachelor’s in Rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley. He has taught at the Universidad Nacional and Stanford. Recent publications include a review of Gabriel Gatti’s Desaparecidos, a study of Wayuu cultural practices, clean-energy discourse in Colombia, law, and sound studies, and \u201c\u00bfC\u00f3mo es ser una mosca? La \u00e9tica y la escala en la literatura de Augusto Monterroso\u201d. He also works with organizations assisting people seeking asylum in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Notes<\/h3>\n\n\n
  1. All photos are property of the author. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. Note that discussions of disappearance tend to refer to the legal category known as enforced disappearance<\/em>. International legal consensus of this crime\u2019s definition can be found in the 2010 UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Per this Convention, a case of enforced disappearance is defined as \u201cthe arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law\u201d (Article 2). The disappearances in Argentina are a classic example of enforced disappearances. However, herein I use the term disappearance<\/em> (sans the qualifier enforced<\/em>) because the category, while linked to many cases of enforced disappearance, circulates today in contexts that do not adhere to this legal definition. See, for instance, Mexico\u2019s 2017 law on expansive law on disappearance, which from its very title combines multiple types of disappearance (i.e., enforced disappearance of persons and disappearance committed by \u201cparticulares\u201d). For further discussion of the variety of contexts in which the category is used, see Gabriel Gatti\u2019s powerful study Desaparecidos: cartograf\u00edas del abandono<\/em> (2022). Gatti follows the \u201crumor\u201d of the \u201cdesaparecido\u201d (rather than the rumor of \u201cdesaparici\u00f3n forzada\u201d) in a multisite study that evinces the theoretical power of the category of disappearance today (45). \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  3. For more on this connection, see the 2012 documentary Di\u00e1logo sin fronteras<\/em>, in which Ana Arzoumanian and Adriana Kalaidjian discuss the Armenian genocide and the last dictatorship in Argentina. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  4. Thousands of Mexican migrants have disappeared, leaving the devastating effects of NAFTA-era policies that depressed prices of Mexican grain, coupled with redistributed migration patterns and international policies (i.e., US drug policies and US consumer demand for drugs) that, among other things, interrupted circular migration. Moreover, US policies have created spaces filled by narcotrafficking corporations in Mexico and led to the importation of US guns. In Central American nations, the US has a painfully long history of destabilizing democratic regimes, and US policies have fueled gang violence. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  5. Note that Denyer Willis refers to the Brazilian context. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  6. Some sources write her name \u201cOmayra.\u201d However, per Colombian official records, such as in the Ley 1632 de 2013, her name is spelled Omaira. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  7. A brief selection of representations of these events includes: Miguel Torres\u2019s play La siempreviva<\/em> (2010), Miguel Jim\u00e9nez, Jos\u00e9 Jim\u00e9nez, and Andr\u00e9s Cruz Barrera\u2019s graphic novel Los Once<\/em> (2014), and Laura Mora Ortega\u2019s film Antes del fuego<\/em> (2015). \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  8. Officially recognized as taking place between 1958 and 2016. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n

    Works Cited<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Denyer Willis, Graham. Keep the Bones Alive: Missing People and the Search for Life in Brazil<\/em>. U of California P, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Edkins, Jenny. Missing: Persons and Politics<\/em>. Cornell UP, 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Enr\u00edquez, Mariana. Nuestra parte de noche<\/em>. Editorial Anagrama, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Gatti, Gabriel. Desaparecidos: Cartograf\u00edas del abandono<\/em>. Editorial Turner, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    United Nations. International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance<\/em>, 2006 (revised 2010).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\n\n
    Argentina<\/a>, <\/span>border<\/a>, <\/span>boundaries<\/a>, <\/span>disappeared<\/a>, <\/span>literature<\/a>, <\/span>Mexico<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Joseph Wager Perhaps the most widely studied case of disappearances is that of the last c\u00edvico-militar dictatorship in Argentina. The number of disappearances is generally recognized as 30,000. Resistance to this regime of terror has been influential domestically and internationally, from the human-rights report Nunca M\u00e1s to the Madres de Plaza de Mayo. Today, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3828,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uw_seo_meta_title":"","_uw_seo_meta_description":"","_uw_seo_twitter_card_type":"summary_large_image","_uw_seo_meta_image":"","_uw_seo_meta_image_url":"","_uw_seo_meta_image_sizes":[],"_uw_seo_custom_meta_tags":[],"uw_external_link":"","footnotes":"[{\"id\":\"9d4d5d1e-4974-470e-93d8-104360ae2dbc\",\"content\":\"All photos are property of the author.\"},{\"id\":\"2b3d5e5e-31a9-42e1-a46a-4ba7fa9a074c\",\"content\":\"Note that discussions of disappearance tend to refer to the legal category known as enforced disappearance<\\\/em>. International legal consensus of this crime\\u2019s definition can be found in the 2010 UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Per this Convention, a case of enforced disappearance is defined as \\u201cthe arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law\\u201d (Article 2). The disappearances in Argentina are a classic example of enforced disappearances. However, herein I use the term disappearance<\\\/em> (sans the qualifier enforced<\\\/em>) because the category, while linked to many cases of enforced disappearance, circulates today in contexts that do not adhere to this legal definition. See, for instance, Mexico\\u2019s 2017 law on expansive law on disappearance, which from its very title combines multiple types of disappearance (i.e., enforced disappearance of persons and disappearance committed by \\u201cparticulares\\u201d). For further discussion of the variety of contexts in which the category is used, see Gabriel Gatti\\u2019s powerful study Desaparecidos: cartograf\\u00edas del abandono<\\\/em> (2022). Gatti follows the \\u201crumor\\u201d of the \\u201cdesaparecido\\u201d (rather than the rumor of \\u201cdesaparici\\u00f3n forzada\\u201d) in a multisite study that evinces the theoretical power of the category of disappearance today (45).\"},{\"id\":\"10693dbf-e6d8-4040-867d-04d3c8d4bc1e\",\"content\":\"For more on this connection, see the 2012 documentary Di\\u00e1logo sin fronteras<\\\/em>, in which Ana Arzoumanian and Adriana Kalaidjian discuss the Armenian genocide and the last dictatorship in Argentina.\"},{\"id\":\"1b95eed3-6c95-4f0e-ad39-af8fe13c0907\",\"content\":\"Thousands of Mexican migrants have disappeared, leaving the devastating effects of NAFTA-era policies that depressed prices of Mexican grain, coupled with redistributed migration patterns and international policies (i.e., US drug policies and US consumer demand for drugs) that, among other things, interrupted circular migration. Moreover, US policies have created spaces filled by narcotrafficking corporations in Mexico and led to the importation of US guns. In Central American nations, the US has a painfully long history of destabilizing democratic regimes, and US policies have fueled gang violence.\"},{\"id\":\"fd198c63-5afb-4297-a59d-40c5d55fcf3a\",\"content\":\"Note that Denyer Willis refers to the Brazilian context.\"},{\"id\":\"494fab47-7219-4dbc-a1c6-74972ebfe30b\",\"content\":\"Some sources write her name \\u201cOmayra.\\u201d However, per Colombian official records, such as in the Ley 1632 de 2013, her name is spelled Omaira.\"},{\"id\":\"de4ca14d-48be-4c37-89e6-52955d2e4e2a\",\"content\":\"A brief selection of representations of these events includes: Miguel Torres\\u2019s play La siempreviva<\\\/em> (2010), Miguel Jim\\u00e9nez, Jos\\u00e9 Jim\\u00e9nez, and Andr\\u00e9s Cruz Barrera\\u2019s graphic novel Los Once<\\\/em> (2014), and Laura Mora Ortega\\u2019s film Antes del fuego<\\\/em> (2015).\"},{\"id\":\"413d71a0-da89-40b1-955b-1d61b81a9990\",\"content\":\"Officially recognized as taking place between 1958 and 2016.\"}]"},"categories":[38],"tags":[88,41,87,86,36,17],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-2-fall-winter-2023","tag-argentina","tag-border","tag-boundaries","tag-disappeared","tag-literature","tag-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3828"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}