Trajectories of families of the disappeared in Perú: The role of recognition in mobilising justice

Abstract

The longest conflict in Peru’s republican history took place between 1980 and 2000. It reported the highest costs for its citizens due to murders, extra-judicial detentions, enforced disappearances, tortures, massacres, and massive violence. In this contribution, we focus on the role of recognition in mobilising justice by a group of women whose family members were victims of enforced disappearances during this conflict. These women raised collective initiatives to cope with State crimes. Their demands included the recognition of the enforced disappearances of their loved ones, the acknowledgement of their status as victims, and their utmost demand to find and bury the disappeared, as well as to ensure accountability of perpetrators. Drawing on focus groups, participant observations and in-depth interviews, we analyse the trajectories of victims in their search for recognition to access justice in a post-conflict society. Findings indicate three dynamics through which family members claim recognition: (1) inscribing the missing family member in the family’s everyday dynamic as a kind of intra-family recognition of their loss; (2) setting-up of community organisation and the launch of collective platforms to denounce collectively and provide mutual recognition to each other; (3) a further intensifying of group activities to be acknowledged as agents of social change and to advocate for societal recognition. This contribution proposes a victim-centred lens that locates women’ trajectories as a reaction to their victimisation and aims to shed light on the possibilities that victims open to advance in their healing process in post-conflict societies.