The Margins of Disappearance: Analysis of the Mexican Context

Abstract

The so-called war on drugs in Mexico has impacted the territory in different ways, and depending on the geographic area in which we are located, we can obtain different interpretations. The main differences arise when we compare a large city with a small municipality, far from the political-economic centers. At first, we might think that there is no need to compare two contrasting realities, but the testimonies of searching mothers who live in municipalities which do not belong to a city and, on the contrary, are part of regions far from a metropolitan capital, indicate the contrary. During my fieldwork in Western Mexico, the testimonies of my interlocutors highlighted the importance of the materiality of the state and its low presence as an expression of abandonment, which for them is one of the main reasons for understanding the lack of justice. In order to enter into the analysis, I invoke the notion of margin, although throughout the pages I underline its limits and the need to expand the concept to better grasp the Mexican state in the context of the war.