A New Lab Examines the Social, Political, and Economic Consequences of Disappearance

The Social Study of Disappearance Lab, established in 2023, is dedicated to exploring the social, political, and economic dimensions of disappearance—ranging from forced disappearances in Mexico to migrant vanishings across the Mediterranean. The lab unites faculty, students, and collaborators in a collective effort to understand how these phenomena reveal shifts in state power, criminal networks, and social structures. Through interdisciplinary research, digital ethnography, and historical analysis, the lab seeks not only to deepen academic understanding, but also to inform public policy and support affected communities.

The lab is a program within the Department of Anthropology. Columbia partners include Incite, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, and the Center for Political Economy.

Claudio Lomnitz, chair of the Department of Anthropology and the Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology, discusses the Social Study of Disappearance Lab with Columbia News.

Why and when was this lab started?

The Social Study of Disappearance Lab was officially founded in November 2023, but my work on disappearance dates back to 2019. That year, I launched the Buscadoras Research Unit at Columbia in response to Mexico’s ongoing disappearance crisis. BRU focused on assisting families of the disappeared through non-forensic research. Around the same time, I organized the Violence and New Mores workshop at Columbia’s Center for Mexican Studies, exploring disappearance as both a political and social issue.

Through these initiatives, it became clear that the study of disappearance would require a sustained, structured research strategy, and this led me to create the Mexico’s Disappeared Practicum, which fostered student training in GIS (geographic information system) mapping, digital ethnography, and context analysis, providing direct research support to Mexico’s National Search Commission for the Disappeared and the State Commission in Zacatecas.

As I taught the practicum, the crisis continued to escalate in Mexico with the National Registry of Missing Persons recording 111,521 disappeared persons. The practicum was no longer sufficient for the scale of research required to understand both this crisis and disappearance as a phenomenon; we needed a dedicated space for comparative research, which bridges academic inquiry and methodological innovation to analyze disappearance globally.

What projects are you and your team working on in the lab?

We are engaged in multiple projects that examine the different dimensions of disappearance. One of our core initiatives remains the Mexico’s Disappeared Practicum, where students receive the hands-on training described above. In the practicum's most recent iteration (fall 2024), one group of students collaborated with Fundación Para la Justicia, conducting legal research to support the families of Central American migrants who were disappeared in northern Mexico. A few students are continuing their work with us and the Fundación para la Justicia, supporting their work with GIS mapping and conducting their own independent research.

In October 2024, we launched the Role of Context Analysis for Memory, Truth, and Justice working group, bringing together experts to share their experiences utilizing the juridically sanctioned procedures of context analysis as a tool for justice. Additionally, we recently started the Tertiary Disappearances Project, which investigates how disappearance data is recorded, manipulated, and miscounted in Mexico's official statistics.

We are currently developing another research initiative, the Thriving Economies Amidst Armed Violence Project, which is a transatlantic collaboration between scholars in France and the U.S., whose aim is to expand our understanding of political economy, governance, and violence, and the linkages between them.

All these projects tackle different dimensions of disappearance, but they share the common aspiration of producing socially impactful research.

What sorts of results have been achieved so far?

In this first year and a half, we are working to establish the Social Study of Disappearance Lab as a hub for comparative research, fostering collaboration between scholars, journalists, and human rights experts.

In the autumn 2024 semester, we hosted leading experts in law and human rights to engage with the Columbia community on critical issues related to disappearance.

Our first event featured Dr. José Ramón Cossío Díaz, retired Supreme Court Justice of Mexico, and Edna Jaime, dean of social sciences at Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, discussing judicial reforms and their impact on Mexico’s crisis of the disappeared.

Our second event welcomed Omar Gómez Trejo, former special prosecutor for the 2014 Ayotzinapa case and current visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, who shared insights from his experience investigating one of Mexico’s most infamous cases of mass disappearance.

More recently, in early February, we hosted our second major conference, Forced Disappearance and Governmentality, where scholars and journalists came together to discuss disappearance as a problem for governance across a variety of geographic contexts.

What is the lab’s focus this semester?

This semester, we are concentrating on three key areas:

• Institutional infrastructure—We recently launched our website, which serves as a hub for our research, publications, and events.
• Expansion of new initiatives—Our aforementioned working group on context analysis is well underway. Meanwhile, the Tertiary Disappearances Project is exploring new software to enhance data processing and analysis.
• Broaden the geographic scope of our programming—Our February conference on Forced Disappearance and Governmentality included scholars specializing in Africa, Europe, and Asia. Next, we are concentrating on Syria, for which we had a major conference on March 28: Disappearance in Syria: A Moment of Truth.

Overall, we are laying the groundwork to make the lab a hub for international interdisciplinary research on disappearance.

Any public events happening where you can share results?

Absolutely. Our events serve as platforms to advance both academic and policy research on disappearance. One exciting example is the upcoming art exhibition, En Memoria del Barrio, at El Colegio Nacional in Mexico. This exhibition stems from a research project I conducted with Fernando Moreno, who is an MA anthropology student in Mexico, my research assistant, and collaborator on this project: Vertical Monopoly, Territorial Control, and the Extermination of Barrio Youths. The project features Moreno’s photographs, documenting our work in Zacatecas on the targeted killings of barrio youths.

This exhibition bridges research and public engagement, making visible the realities of violence and disappearance that often remain overlooked.

What are you teaching this semester?

I’m not teaching this semester. However, I will be teaching the Mexico’s Disappeared Practicum again in the fall.

Anything you want to add?

As a new lab, one of our main priorities is expanding our collaborations within Columbia and beyond. We are seeking partnerships with scholars, human rights organizations, and journalists who are interested in studying the social, economic, and political dimensions of disappearance across different global contexts. We also encourage students and researchers to get involved, whether it is through the practicum, working groups, events, or research projects.

Disappearance is a complex issue, and understanding it requires as many perspectives and as much collaboration as possible.