Disappearance Of People Research Articles

The thread and the stitches of the academic literature on the disappearance of people in contemporary Brazil

The recent publication of academic works on the disappearance of people in contemporary Brazil has shown that researchers from different disciplines have become increasingly interested in exploring the phenomenon, in contrast with the scarcity of academic studies on the subject in the 2000s. This bibliographical essay is a reflection on the analytic movements made by more recent articles, dissertations and books on the disappearance of people in post-dictatorship Brazil. Initially, the few academic works on the subject focused on describing and trying to define the phenomenal specificity of disappearance. More recently, though, dissertations and books have moved away from treating disappearance as a particular empirical phenomenon in favour of using the term as an analytic category. These works explore the term ‘disappearance’ as a tool capable of threading together, for analytic purposes, phenomena as diverse as slavery, the non-identification of bodies, mass incarceration and emigration, among others. The essay comments on this recent movement and questions its possible effects.

Women Searching for Missing Persons in Mexico. Guidelines for a Public Policy with a Gender Perspective

The increase in the disappearance of people in Mexico has been the reason why women in various circumstances carry out actions at any risk to find their loved ones, others voluntarily join this cause; they are called seekers and their search leadership is forceful. In this study, it is noted that there are no official figures that identify how many there are and their various situations are posed as a public problem that requires a gender analysis to understand and reveal the dimension of their realities in which they operate under a context of abandonment violence, inequalities and discrimination that derive from structural causes in a patriarchal society. It is reflected that guidelines are proposed towards a public policy that recognizes their own identity and has a transforming effect to guarantee and protect their human rights as women.

Implementasi Home Carepada Pasien Kusta Di Desa Bitahan Kecamatan Lok Paikat Kabupaten Tapin Kalimantan Selatan

Leprosy is an infectious disease that causes very complex problems. The problem in question is not only from a medical point of view but also extends to social, economic, cultural, security and resilience issues. Stigma in the community is still a major obstacle in an effort to break the chain of leprosy transmission. . The irregularity of treatment and the disappearance of people with leprosy have an impact on the failure of leprosy prevention. In addition, people affected by leprosy and families with leprosy as care givers do not receive proper direction and evaluation regarding their roles and duties from the officers.
 This research was carried out using a qualitative approach with a phenomenal descriptive design. Data collection methods were carried out using Focus Discussion Group (FGD) techniques for 7 participants. The results of this study showed that participants had negative and positive responses when diagnosed with leprosy, participants felt they were not recovering from their illness and participants hoped for a re-examination of the illness they suffered. In addition patients feel the need to get legal aspects in the form of a statement stating that they have been declared cured.
 
 Key Word: home care, carrying, leprossy

A missing person as a copyright holder

The disappearance of people is a phenomenon that requires in-depth multi-faceted analysis. The law does not regulate the situation of a missing person between their disappearance and being declared dead. During this time, in the understanding of the law, a missing person remains an entity that can dispose of their property rights and personal rights, but because of the disappearance people are unable to do that, so his/her rights are exposed to be lost or unlawfully used by other persons. As a result, many doubts must be faced by people close to the missing person. This work discusses the copyrights of the missing person, its execution and protection in the time between the disappearance and declaring the person dead. As an introduction, the subject of copyright (work) is discussed and the division of copyright into moral rights and property rights is indicated. Next, the paper presents the possible ways of proceeding in the event of a disappearance, including a minor, spouse, and co-creator. The possibility of appointing a custodian and submitting a request to a prosecutor is indicated, and an analogous application of provisions in the event of death is proposed. Moreover, a situation where an action to protect moral/economic copyrights has been brought before a person missing (the proceedings are pending) is noted. Finally, the consequences of declaring a missing person to be dead are discussed. Based on the considerations carried out, it can be concluded that there is no single appropriate legal solution in a situation where there is a need to exercise and protect the personal/economic copyrights of a missing person. The proposed solutions of proceeding in the missing person case are not specifically designed in the event of a disappearance, and their application is not established in practice. It seems that the court should recognize the need to protect the interests of the missing person and allow the proceedings to be conducted when referring to one of the proposed solutions. Adaptation of the indicated solutions, in the face of the forced inactivity of the missing person, should guarantee the protection of his/her rights. De lege ferenda, it is worth considering the general regulation of a person’s situation from the moment of his/her disappearance until he/she is declared dead. This could be done by introducing a provision providing for the possibility of appointing a custodian to handle the missing person’s affairs.

Assessing optical remote sensing for grave detection

The application of an effective and ready-to-use tool for discovering clandestine graves is crucial for solving a number of cases where disappearance of people is involved. This is the case in Mexico, where the government drug war has resulted in a large number of missing people that has been estimated to be over 40,000 since the year 2006. In this article, we report results from an experimental study on simulated animal graves detection using several techniques from optical remote sensing. Results showed that several spectral indices from hyperspectral and/or multispectral sensors may be used to detect N-enriched vegetation. Thermal imagery was also effective to detect underground voids through differential thermography, although this was only effective for detecting large graves with bare terrain. Lastly, while dense pointclouds reconstructed from oblique aerial photography was able to detect vegetation regrowth over the pits, the terrain subsidence was not sufficiently large to be detected with this technique, even in the case of mechanical removal of vegetation.

A Predictive Model for the Missing People Problem

The disappearance of people is a multidimensional phenomenon, in which several aspects must be considered. It affects people’s security perception and consumes police resources in its treatment. Therefore, does exists an emotional circumstance for the relatives of the missing person. At the same, the police departments must develop a search task, in most cases with much uncertainty. In this research, a predictive model to predict missing people’s status is presented. The information used to create the model come from the Colombian legal Medicine Institute, in a public dataset composed of 6202 cases and 11 variables. The output variable was the final disappearance status, with the categories Appears Dead, Appears Alive, and Still Disappeared. Three supervised machine-learning algorithms were trained and tested for the model creation, K-Nearest Neighbours, Decision Trees, and Random Forest. The study was divided into three phases, first considering all the output categories. In the second phase, generating a binary classification for the Appeared and Not appeared instance. Thirdly, models were built to predict the status of appeared persons, Appears Alive or Appears Dead. The K-NN algorithm outperforms the other models with an Area under the curve value of 94.8%.

Mujeres que caminan a través de la adversidad. La posibilidad resiliente frente a casos violentos complejos vinculados con las desapariciones en México

México enfrenta actualmente uno de los más grandes retos en materia humanitaria debido a la violencia y a la desaparición de personas, lo cual ha cobrado una alta relevancia tanto por su cuantificación como por su rápida proliferación. El propósito del presente es compartir los hallazgos de un estudio cualitativo donde se expone cómo la violencia vinculada con el combate al narcotráfico ha posicionado a los ciudadanos bajo una constante vulnerabilidad y cómo las mujeres a través de procesos resilientes se han organizado en colectivos para demandar justicia, buscar personas desaparecidas y acompañarse frente a las diferentes situaciones de adversidad.

Cuerpos en trance. Paisajes, flujos, desaparición y transición en Colombia

En Colombia, la desaparición de personas ha discurrido en una compleja ecología de lo humano y lo no-humano, lo deshecho, y los desechos. Un paisaje en la que circulan cuerpos ocultos, enterrados y vertidos en ríos, botaderos, escombreras, zonas de excedentes, y particularmente en cementerios, configurando formas híbridas de vida y sentido entre la muerte. Aquí, abordo la desaparición desde su comprensión como un fenómeno latente en el paisaje, el cual, como los cuerpos e identidades de quienes son desaparecidos, es sujeto de una transformación violenta, continua, y en algunos casos, irreversible. Una espacialidad en la que las cargas simbólicas y materiales embebidas –aquellas que posibilitan procesos de resistencia, politización, y la creación de otras formas de futuro– se encuentran en riesgo de ser radicalmente transformadas y de desaparecer. De este modo, este artículo responde a una aproximación metodológica ad hoc en la que a través de la investigación-creación, y la observación participativa, indago en las diferentes formas de relación y sentido que la desaparición configura entre sujetos, cuerpos, sus recorridos, y el paisaje.

Presentación. Nuevas desapariciones, nuevos espacios

Frente a la emergencia de nuevas formas de desaparición en el siglo xxi, nuevos espacios aparecen asociados (por ejemplo, el desierto de Arizona-Sonora que pareciera tragarse a aquellos lo atraviesan como si fuera una «máquina de matar» o el mar Mediterráneo donde los Estados europeos «dejan morir» a los migrantes). Los nuevos tipos de desaparición no sólo presentan dinámicas particulares respecto a las desapariciones que ya conocíamos, sino que el rol mismo del espacio en ellas pareciera haberse visto conmovido de manera profunda. La novedad que trae este número especial consiste en proponer una discusión sobre el rol que juega el espacio en la emergencia de nuevas formas de desaparición e indagar, también, sobre «viejas desapariciones» pero a partir de espacios hasta ahora han sido poco analizados con relación a la desaparición forzada de personas.

El delito de desaparición forzada de personas en América Latina

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo determinar el origen del delito de desaparición forzada de personas en América Latina. La metodología que se empleó para llevar a cabo la investigación, consistió en el análisis normativo, histórico y jurisprudencial que a nivel internacional existe en el tema objeto de estudio, utilizando el método teórico analítico. La estructura del artículo inicia con un repaso por la evolución histórica que dicha conducta penal ha tenido en la región. Luego se examinan los precedentes más relevantes de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos en la materia, a los fines de identificar sus principales estándares interpretativos; como así también su recepción en la Convención Interamericana sobre Desaparición Forzada de Personas, y en los principales tratados y declaraciones internacionales sobre Derechos Humanos. El ensayo concluye con un estudio del impacto reciente de las sentencias de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos sobre Desaparición Forzada de Personas. Finalmente, se arriba a la conclusión de que el citado delito comenzó a practicarse en Guatemala, en el año 1966, para, a partir de allí, expandirse hacia el resto de América Latina.

State Terrorism: South America during the 1970s. A case of State Terrorism Transnationalization

During the 1970s, for the first time in the political history of the Southern Cone, supranation-al integration between the different dictatorships of the region took place. These intensified state repressive action, putting into operation a counterrevolutionary state war machine with a clear desire for liquidation, which reached an objective realization through the disappear-ance of people and the spread of terror. As a result of this process, which knew no national boundaries or ideological boundaries, there was a massive violation of human rights; on the other hand, and from this, in the field of social sciences the conceptualization of State terror-ism was used before its conceptual precision allowed for unicity of criteria. This article pre-sents a theoretical conceptual reflection to advance the understanding of the specific mecha-nisms of the emergence, expansion and transnationalization of State terrorism. With the con-crete study of the Operation Condor, which fully demonstrated the integration of the dictator-ships of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Ethnic Politics and its Effect on Democracy in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic nation with cultural differences between its component ethnic groups. From the north to the south, the range in types of social system, dress, diet and languages far exceeds that to be found elsewhere in the world. This diversity has resulted into two major problems namely: conflict between ethnic groups and the hostility that derives from competition between people for wealth and power. Since EPRDF controlled the power throne in 1991, there are extreme conflicts among different Ethnic groups. EPRDF has been using boldly ethnicity to stay on power by creating conflicts among ethnic groups and to manipulate, to oppress, persecute, revenge, and disappearance of people who stand against the EPRDF propaganda. EPRDF higher officials and prominent figures are the main calibrates in creating conflicts between ethnic groups to assure continuation of the regime. This paper examines ethnic politics and its effect on democracy in Ethiopia.

Ornamental stones of the Verbano Cusio Ossola quarry district: characterization of materials, quarrying techniques and history and relevance to local and national heritage

Abstract This paper reports the results of an Interreg Project (OSMATER – Sub-Alpine Observatory Materials Territory Restoration) that investigated the present and historical quarrying and processing activities in the cross-border area between the Ossola Valley (Italy) and the Canton Ticino (Switzerland), and the use of dimension stones in local and national architecture. These materials are in many ways unique for their abundance and lithological variety. In the past, their extraction, processing and application characterized in a decisive way the architectural and constructive culture, both in terms of prestigious architecture and civil buildings, establishing a relationship between ‘stones and culture’, and ‘territory and its resources’. In recent years, many traditions of the quarrying, processing and architectural activities are losing importance and interest is being loss, resulting in a loss of knowledge and historical memory. The loss of this knowledge is likely to become irreversible in the short term, with the disappearance of people and social groups as depositaries of tradition. We conclude that the creation of an ‘observatory’, like OSMATER, is desirable and, indeed, essential if we want to preserve the historical memory of the stone industry of an entire production area.

Documentaries and politics in post-dictatorship Argentina: Cuarentena: Exilio y regreso and Juan, como si nada hubiera sucedido by Carlos Echeverría

While much has been written about Argentine political documentary during the 1960s and 1970s, less has been said about post-dictatorship political documentaries. This article will consider the films Cuarentena: Exilio y regreso (1983) and Juan, como si nada hubiera sucedido (1987) by Carlos Echeverría, an independent filmmaker who focuses on the return to democracy and reflections on the recent past. Cuarentena: Exilio y regreso is about Osvaldo Bayer's experiences and fervent desire to return to his homeland. Osvaldo Bayer is an Argentine writer who was exiled in Germany during the dictatorship. Juan, como si nada hubiera sucedido is one of the most important Argentine films of the last thirty years, as it is among the first documentaries to address the subject of the forced disappearance of people during the last military dictatorship. The film contains interviews with military officers who held high positions during the period, asking them about the roles they played in political disappearances.

Dragon Games (review)

Reviewed by: Dragon Games Karen Coats Catanese, P. W. Dragon Games. Aladdin, 2010 [384p]. (The Books of Umber) ISBN 978-1-4169-7521-2 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 7–10 In this second installment of The Books of Umber (the first being Happenstance Found, BCCB 3/09), high-spirited Umber takes his reluctant entourage on a series of adventures to further his quest to see and catalogue the unusual creatures that populate his adopted land. The main journey of the book is to Sarnica, a kingdom ruled by a cruelly violent king and his equally abhorrent son, to see what they call the Dragon Games, but which are really just ritual slayings of maimed dragons. Along the way, though, they have other adventures with creatures thought mythical and discovered to be very real and very dangerous. There are big doings at home in Kurahaven as well: Prince Loden kills both his brothers so that he may be the uncontested heir to the throne, and amnesiac foundling Hap learns a bit more about his origins, specifically that he used to be the simple-minded son and brother of a poor family before he was killed and transformed into a supernaturally powered Meddler. Unfortunately, these plot bits and revelations are clumsily handled, and the appearance and disappearance of people with clues to Hap’s nature and destiny are bluntly inserted without context or follow-up. Character development, which was so strong and compelling in the first book, is utterly abandoned here for the sake of episodic, loosely connected or completely unconnected adventures, and Hap, whose project is to develop and learn to use and control his powers, makes no progress on that front. Catanese’s creative efforts from the first book, however, provide sufficient momentum to carry through here, and the various episodes hold their own interest and originality. Readers who have already become invested in these characters may therefore be satisfied by this return visit to their precarious and fascinating world. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice in Brazil

AbstractIn the Brazilian legal system there is no tradition in recognising the applicability of international criminal law over domestic law. In two cases judged by the STF, the Haximu Massacre and Siegfried Ellwanger, only tangential questions were addressed. In the first, the arguments concentrated on examining the legal definition of the crime of genocide and its distinction from homicide. In the second, the questions revolved around the social, historical, and political interpretation of the word "race" in the judgment of a defendant who had published anti-Semitic and "revisionist" books and articles about the Holocaust. Brazil has also demonstrated itself to be somewhat refractory in incorporating the principles of international criminal law when examining the Justice of Transition. In a recent decision, the STF affirmed the constitutionality of Law No. 6,683/79, which granted amnesty to the perpetrators of political crimes and the public agents responsible for torture and the forced disappearance of people during the military dictatorship. In summary, the Justices recognised as valid the political agreement that led to the promulgation of the Amnesty Law in such a way that any alteration of its terms could only be made by the National Congress.

Un diagnóstico sobre cadáveres sin identificar (nn) producto del conflicto armado, registrados e inhumados en cementerios del oriente antioqueño

Resumen:este artículo presenta los resultados de la investigación “Oriente, Memoria Desenterrada, un Camino para la Identificación de Personas Desaparecidas en el Oriente Antioqueño”, donde se presenta un diagnóstico cualitativo y cuantitativo pionero en Colombia, hasta donde se conoce, sobre las condiciones del registro y disposición final de cadáveres no identificados (NNs) en cementerios, con una delimitación temporal de enero de 1985 hasta junio de 2008, con el ánimo de sacar a la luz la situación histórica y social de esta problemática. La exploración apunta finalmente a dar cuenta del fenómeno de la desaparición forzada de personas; propone un conjunto de prácticas adecuadas con cadáveres no identificados, a ser tenidas en cuenta en los despachos parroquiales y en los cementerios. Así mismo aporta elementos para la construcción de una cultura de paz.Abstract:This article shows the results of the research entitled “West, an Unburried Memory, a Road for the Identification of Missing People in the Western Region of Antioquia.” Where it is shown a qualitative and quantitative diagnosis, which is a pioneering diagnosis in Colombia, as far as it is known, about the conditions of the registration and final disposal of unidentified corpses in cemeteries, within a range period of time, from January 1985 to June 2008, in order to bring the historic and social situation of this issue to light.This research aims at giving an account of the phenomenon of the forced disappearance of people, and it proposes a set of adequate practices with unidentified corpses, to be taken into account in parochial offices and in cemeteries. As well, it provides some elements for the construction of a culture of peace.

Resurrecting Walter Benjamin

Resurrecting Walter Benjamin Colin Smith Yale University Michael Taussig, Walter Benjamin's Grave. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, July 2006, 248 pp. Although Benjamin's work received scant attention from his peers while he was alive, a vast secondary literature has flowered since his untimely death by suicide in 1940. That he has become one of the great romantic figures of modern European intellectual history is due no doubt both to the unconventionality of his work and the heroic and tragic elements of his life. Denied an academic career, he lived in penury for much of his adult life; once Hitler seized power he was forced to flee Germany, first to Paris, and ultimately to Port Bou on the Franco-Spanish border where, rather than give himself up to the Nazis, he took his own life. He left a fragmentary corpus of writings that defies conventional intellectual classification. Ranging from literary criticism to metaphysics, the production and reception of art, the philosophy of history, and urban landscapes, his writing evinces what Richard Wolin calls a profound spirit of apocalyptic immanence combined with a Utopian sensibility. Benjamin fascinates on many levels. Considering that much of Benjamin's work has serious implications for historical and social analysis, it is curious that he is rarely cited in anthropological discourse. One is much more likely to come upon references to him in art history, literature, film studies, or cultural studies. One of the few anthropologists who have fruitfully made use of Benjamin's ideas is Michael Taussig. Over the years, beginning with The Devil and Commodity Fetishism, Taussig has gotten much mileage out of concepts such as profane illumination, dialectical image, and redemption. Taussig's most recent book, Walter Benjamin's Grave, is a collection of eight essays which, except for the title essay which was written specifically for this volume, are based on articles published between 1993 and 2003. The reader who has encountered Taussig's earlier work will find many of his central theoretical and methodological insights reviewed and extended in this volume. He/she will also find the writing style to be familiar, either poetic or bombastic and obfuscatory, depending on her point of view. The title suggests a memorial to Benjamin, but the book is more a critique of conventional modes of interpretation in history and the social sciences, a critique inspired by Benjamin first and foremost, but also by Marx, Nietzsche, and Bataille, among others. The peculiar thing about Benjamin's grave is that no one knows for sure where it is. There are records of his stay, death, and burial in Port Bou, but when Hannah Arendt arrived a few months after his suicide, she could not locate the grave. In his memoir of Benjamin, Gershom Scholem vented his disgust at the apocryphal memorial that had been erected by the cemetery attendants. This kind of reaction is based on the assumption that there should be a clear and direct connection between symbol and referent for something to be authentic or true, an assumption that Taussig questions as the only appropriate way to view burial, or to apprehend reality. He notes that Benjamin himself sought meaning in the world not only from smoothly functioning symbols, as if reading from a dictionary, but also from an awkwardness of fit between signs and what they refer to, most especially when those signs cluster around Taussig finds evidence which suggests that Benjamin's body might have been removed from its original niche in the cemetery to a fosa comun, or grave, which was part of the Port Bou burial system and a common practice under Franco's dictatorship. In contrast to Scholem, he reads Benjamin's grave as an allegory for the violence of the state, its mass torture, and its disappearance of people. Beyond the mystery surrounding Benjamin's death and gravesite, the essays in this volume cover a wide range of topics: a Columbian peasant epic poet; commodity fetishism and the Devil's Pact; changing understandings and uses of the sea; shamanism; secrecy and taboo; the spectral nature of police; and the relationship between flowers and death. …