Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DigitalMemories (We are all Ayotzinapa: The role of Digital Media in the Shaping of Transnational Memories on Disappearance)

Teaser

The Digital Memories project, which is based at the KU Leuven Faculty of Arts, takes an interdisciplinary approach to study the role of digital media in the formation of transnational memories of disappearance, based on the case of 43 students from a rural teachers’ college...

Summary

The Digital Memories project, which is based at the KU Leuven Faculty of Arts, takes an interdisciplinary approach to study the role of digital media in the formation of transnational memories of disappearance, based on the case of 43 students from a rural teachers’ college in Ayotzinapa, Mexico, who disappeared in 2014. By focusing on digital media, the project contributes to current methodological and conceptual debates in the field of Memory Studies regarding digital and social media content and how it relates to collective memories. At the same time, the analysis of mobilisations around the Ayotzinapa case addresses the apparent lack of a national collective memory of past disappearances in Mexico and connects it to the current crisis of disappearances in the country, where over 40,000 people have disappeared since the onset of the so-called “war on drugs” in 2006.
The Digital Memories team is composed of researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds, including memory studies, literature, art history, communication, history, and law. In their individual research projects, each team member focuses on a particular aspect of the complex phenomenon of (enforced) disappearances in Mexico as well as the mnemonic practices and activism around it, employing a variety of methodological and disciplinary approaches. In addition to the individual projects, during this first half of the project, the team focused on situating the Ayotzinapa case in its wider historical, social, political and legal context. For this, the team travelled to Mexico in 2017 to conduct exploratory fieldwork, visit mnemonic sites in Mexico City and meet with academic and civil society experts in the area of disappearances and memory in the country.
The team members have been actively disseminating their research by participating in a numerous of international conferences and seminars. In addition, several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters have been published in the course of the past two years. An important component of the project has been the organisation of meetings and workshops with experts on different topics addressed by the project. Thus, the team has met with experts in the field of social media research, digital memories and memory studies and in June 2018 it organised an interdisciplinary workshop on the issue of disappearances in Mexico in Leuven. Through active engagement with academic and non-academic (e.g. civil society) actors, the Digital Memories team aims to bridge the gap between purely academic research and the reality of the ongoing crisis of disappearances in Mexico.

Work performed

The interdisciplinary Digital Memories research team was fully integrated in March 2017. Since then, each member of the team has worked on individual research projects examining the issue of (enforced) disappearances in Mexico and memory practices from different disciplinary perspectives, including memory studies, visual culture studies, communication, history, cultural studies, and law. At the same time, together the team studied the historical, social, political and legal background of the phenomenon of disappearances in Mexico, both in the past and in the present, in order to place the Ayotzinapa case and memory practices surrounding it in a wider context. As part of this, the team conducted exploratory fieldwork in Mexico in November 2017 and met with academics, artists and civil society organisations working on the issue of disappearances and memory in the country.

The team also organised and co-organised a number of expert meetings, workshops and seminars, and brought the exhibition “Footprints of Memory” (“Huellas de la Memoria”) to the KU Leuven Faculty of Law (http://digitalmemories.be/2018/09/11/huellas-de-la-memoria/). The workshops are organised with the aim of promoting an in-depth discussion on topics, concepts or methodological matters related to the project, such as digital memories, social media analysis, memory and activism, and disappearance in Mexico. On this last topic, in June 2018 we invited a multi-disciplinary group of experts to Leuven with the aim of fostering a dialogue on the phenomenon of disappearances in Mexico, and memory thereof, from a historical, sociological, political, legal and aesthetic perspective. We are currently working on a publication to reflect the rich discussions held during the workshop.

In terms of research, Digital Memories has advanced in the conceptualisation of the notion of “digital memory” and the development of a theoretical model for the analysis of digital memory objects. The theoretical approach challenges three predominant assumptions in the field of Memory Studies: the prominence of ‘trauma’ to define collective memory around human rights violations and the concurrent disregard for the centrality of ‘activism’; the distinction in the digital ecology between memory and information; and the methodological approach to social media that differentiates between platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube) instead of analysing content that migrates across platforms as ‘memory objects’.

Final results

The research conducted by the Digital Memories is contributing to progressing beyond the state of the art in the different disciplines in which the team members work, as well as on the respective research topics, both from a substantive and methodological perspective.
At the substantive level, one important advancement of the state of the art is the focus on Mexico generally, and disappearances in Mexico more specifically. In the field memory studies the country is almost absent and where Mexico is included in works on memory in Latin America, the focus tends to be on the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968 and not the practice of enforced disappearances during the so-called “dirty war” period. Our research further adds by introducing comparative work on memory practices surrounding disappearances in Mexico and Argentina, and by introducing cases from Latin America to add to/challenge US- and Euro-centric critical approaches to the post-structuralist turn in cultural studies. Additionally, existing literature on memory or disappearances in Mexico is mostly in Spanish and the project thus makes an important contribution to English language literature in this field.
Another important contribution of the project is the focus on digital memories, both from a substantive and methodological perspective. In this, it addresses fundamental questions about the role of digital media in the creation of memory and the conceptualisation of digital memories, and aims to propose a new theoretical framework for the analysis of digital media objects.
Finally, the focus on disappearances in Mexico adds to existing legal literature in the field of enforced disappearances, where Mexico – and its legacy of enforced disappearances – tends to be overlooked. Moreover, the more general topic of non-state actors and disappearances, which is one of the main issues with regards to present-day disappearances in Mexico, has not yet received much attention. Another topic addressed in the project’s legal dimension is the specific issue of victims of disappearances committed by organised crime in international law, where research is still quite incipient. The research aims to introduce the issue of atrocities committed by organised crime to discussions in the field of international law and transitional justice.

Website & more info

More info: http://digitalmemories.be.