A Mnemonic Community Frames the Crisis of Disappeared People as Extension of Mexico’s Dirty War

• In Event: 4360 - Mobilizing for and Against Violence in Pursuit of Social Justice

Abstract

Based on a mixed methods approach that combines historical analysis with content analyses of two distinct media sources, I argue that some veteran activists mobilize the memory of Mexico’s dirty war of the 1970s and 1980s to explain the current crisis of disappeared people. By ignoring the role of drug cartels and the police agents in their employ, these veteran activists depict recent cases of the disappeared as an uninterrupted extension of the past. As such, I argue that activists politicized in the fight against political repression during the 1970s and 1980s formed a mnemonic community. I identify some of their organizations, their mnemonic practices, and illustrate the active processes of memory construction. Finally, I argue that the “dirty war frame” circulated at some of the Ayotzinapa demonstrations of 2014-2015, and had faint echoes in public opinion, as captured by survey data, because it refers to an important cultural trauma.

Author

• Dolores Trevizo, Occidental College