Violence, Law, and the Archive: How Dossiers of Memory Challenge Enforced Disappearances in the War on Terror in Pakistan

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the politics of protest in Pakistan as practiced by the human rights activists and litigants seeking justice for people who have been “disappeared” by the state's military and intelligence services. Based on fieldwork among the family members and friends of these “missing” persons, it discusses how they create dossiers of memory to retain the memory of the disappeared within public sphere and records. Most studies of state bureaucracy and legality trace their history—assumed to be embedded in official files and documents—in state archives. The dossiers assembled by families and friends challenge the state narrative on its war against terrorism and serve as counter‐archives through which state violence can be traced politically and ethnically and mapped geographically. The article draws attention to how marginalized groups use law and its documentary forms against the state in order to hold it accountable for the excesses committed against them.