Work

Common bodies, clandestine bodies: a genealogy of the clandestine common grave, the forensic turn and vocabularies of containment

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article undertakes a genealogy of ‘the clandestine common grave’ as a figure of speech in Mexican history, understanding genealogy as a critical analysis of discourse and practice that traces both continuities and ruptures in experience, modes of enunciation and conditions of possibility. It seeks to show how particular forms of state violence re-emerge over time, revealing a biphasic logic that blurs the line between the public and the clandestine, where corpses are produced through the discursive relations that organise the spaces in which they are placed. Terms such as common grave, clandestine grave, narcofosa (‘narco-grave’), clandestine common grave and forensic crisis are examined less as legal or sociological concepts than as performative rhetorical figures symptomatic of the diverse logics that shape the forensic turn in Mexico, with particular emphasis on the reiterated production and containment of corpses as a political problem.

Source: Human Remains and Violence An Interdisciplinary Journal

DOI: 10.7227/hrv.12.2.2

Author: Roberto Monroy Álvarez

Institution: Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos

Language: English

Topic: Memory, violence, and history

Subfield: Social Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $613