In Mexico, where more than 130,000 people are missing, and over 72,000 bodies remain unidentified, extraordinary violence has become embedded in the fabric of ordinary life. In this conversation, we bring complementary perspectives to bear on this crisis: one focused on the grassroots forensic practices of buscadora collectives —groups of family members, predominantly women and allied scientists, searching for their disappeared loved ones— and the other on the work of state experts, institutions, and practitioners deploying forensic technologies in novel and sometimes unexpected ways.
Together, we explore emergent forensic practices and technologies in Mexico and how these become entangled with —and sometimes transformative of— institutional responses to ongoing violence. A key point of convergence is the question of layered, sedimented harm and its attendant temporalities: what role can technology play in revealing forms of violence that accumulate slowly, across time and terrain? How might emergent socio-forensic assemblages provide alternative registers to address systemic entrenched harms and project long-term just futures?
This event is part of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
LOCATION:MIT, Room E51-095 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20260415T200000Z DTEND:20260415T220000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR