The return of a body, alive (sas, lit. ‘breath’) or dead (las) is a recurring demand of relatives of the disappeared in Nepal. Hundreds of people were disappeared by state security forces or abducted by the Maoists during the armed conflict (1996-2006). Uncertainty surrounds their whereabouts and their fate remains unconfirmed. Not knowing for certain whether someone is alive or dead is a painful predicament for relatives. Their loss remains ambiguous: there is no body, only an abrupt rupture in their lives. This thesis explores how the effects of disappearances reverberate in the details of relationships within families, with local communities and with the state. The disappeared person’s absence becomes a disruptive and unsettling presence, and has had particular effects for women whose husbands have disappeared. When people ‘disappear,’ the fragile line between life and death is disrupted: lives and deaths are held in limbo. This thesis explores the social repercussions and the political uses that have been made of this. Ambiguity is both what makes disappearances a particularly difficult kind of loss to bear for relatives; and what makes ‘the disappeared’ a potent political and moral symbol in continuing contests over the state in the aftermath of the war. The relationship between the personal experiences of relatives and the projects of actors seeking to influence the state is complex and over-layered. For relatives, the gap between life and death is paradoxically both a source of hope and of despair. On a political level it becomes a space of ambiguity upon which statecraft is performed. In Nepal, the search for disappeared relatives developed into collective campaigns demanding truth, justice and compensation from the state. This thesis examines how these campaigns, directed by the Maoist party on the one hand and human rights organisations on the other, whilst advocating for relatives of the disappeared have simultaneously utilised the ‘disappeared’ for their own projects to transform or reform the state. The appropriation of the disappeared as political symbols, has involved inscribing them with new identities as ‘conflict victims’ or as ‘disappeared warriors’. The thesis suggests that the absent bodies of the disappeared have been drawn into different contests of sovereignty. It explores how this politicisation both influences the ways in which relatives come to interpret and experience their loss, and is ultimately often rejected by them. In demanding the return of a body, relatives seek to retrieve the person from the political entanglements of contests over sovereign authority: to reclaim the personal from the political.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The argument of this dissertation calls for an abiding by missing-ness as it relates to apartheid-era disappearances. I am concerned with the ways in which the category missing is articulated in histories of apartheid-era disappearances through histories seeking to account for apartheid and how that category is enabled and /or constrained through mediating practices, processes and discourses such as that of forensics and history itself. My deployment of a notion of missing-ness therefore is put to work in underscoring notions of history and its relation to a category of missing persons in South Africa as they emerge and are figured through various discursive strategies constituted by and through apartheid’s violence and iterations thereof. I focus specifically on the enforced disappearances of Siphiwo Mthimkulu, Tobekile ‘Topsy’ Madaka and Sizwe Kondile and the vicarious ways in which they have been produced and (re)figured in a postapartheid present. Mthimkulu and Madaka were abducted, tortured, interrogated, killed and their bodies disposed through burning by apartheid’s security police in 1982. In 2007 South Africa’s Missing Persons Task Team exhumed commingled burnt human fragments at a farm, Post Chalmers. After two years of forensic examinations, those remains were identified as most likely those of Mthimkulu and Madaka. Their commingled remains were reburied in 2009 during an official government sanctioned Provincial re-burial. Kondile was similarly abducted in 1981 and after being imprisoned, tortured, interrogated and killed, his physical remains were burnt. The MPTT has been unsuccessful in locating and thus exhuming his remains for re-burial. Sizwe Kondile remains missing. Missing-ness as I evoke it serves to signal the lack and excess as potentiality and instability of histories accounting for the condition and symptom of being missing. The productivity of deploying missing-ness and an abidance to it in the ways I argue is precisely in not explicitly naming it, but rather by holding onto its elusiveness by marking the contours of discourses on absence-presence, those which it simultaneously touches upon and is constitutive of. Articulating it thus is to affirm missing-ness as a question that I argue, be put to work and abided by.

Why do women protest? Why do women protest “as women”? Why do some women participate in protests but not others? In the wake of the Women’s March of 2017, perhaps the largest single day protest event in history, these questions are particularly timely and deserve scholarly attention. One important but understudied and undertheorized motivation for women’s protests is state sanctioned violence, particularly repression. This dissertation explicitly theorizes about how state perpetration of violence, particularly state use of repression, both motivates and shapes women’s protests on a global scale. In this dissertation, I argue that one key motivation for women’s protest is repression by the state, and I theorize that women will protest more frequently when the state uses repression. Repression negatively impacts members of the population, particularly relatives, friends, and communities of those targeted by the state, and this motivates those people to protest. However, I argue that the type of repression, and more specifically how gendered the state practices repression, matters. The more that gender plays a role in determining who states target with repression, the more gender matters in the societal response to repression. In particular, I examine the use of forced disappearances. Based on historical and contemporary accounts, I show that forced disappearance largely targets males, and thus motivates women’s protests but has no effect on protests by other groups. When the state makes use of forced disappearances, some women are motivated to protest due to their connections to victims of repression. Furthermore, opportunities to protest in these circumstances are more available to women than to men, due to their relatively lower likelihood of being targeted, as well as women’s distinctive positions in society and their ability to organize themselves as women. Not only do women have additional space relative to men to protest when the state is repressive, but individual women recognize that their gender can serve as a resource in such contexts. Thus, individual women are more likely to participate in protests themselves when the state uses repression, closing the gender gap in protest participation between men and women. I test my theory of women’s protest using two unique approaches. First, utilizing unique new data on women’s protests that is globally comprehensive for all countries from 1990-2009, I show that women’s protests are more frequent when the state is repressive, and that forced disappearances in particular motivate women’s protests, specifically, but do not have an observable effect on general protests. Second, I utilize regionally comprehensive data on citizens in Latin America from 2006 and 2008 to show that women are more likely to participate in protests when the state uses forced disappearances, but that men are not more likely to participate in protests in repressive contexts.

Study was conducted to evaluate in vitro digestibility of native warm-season grasses. Three grasses were used: big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium Nash), and indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans Nash). There were no differences in NDF, ADF, FAT and OM of the three grass species. However, DM, hemicellulose and CP were slightly different in the three grass species. Also, the frequency nested in cutting effects was determined. In vitro dry matter disappearance of big bluestem, little bluestem and indiangrass was evaluated to determine rate of disappearance. The 100 % indiangrass revealed the greatest rate of disappearance for IVDMD and 100 % little bluestem grass the least, respectively. However, that of other proportion mixtures of treatments and 100 % big bluestem grass were in between. There were no differences in in vitro neutral detergent fiber disappearances among treatments.

Enforced disappearances has been used as a repressive strategy by numerous Latin American states against tens of thousands of presumed political opponents and adversaries, starting in the 1960’s in Guatemala. In contemporary Latin America, Mexico holds the record for disappearances, both politically and non-politically motivated, with more than 30 000 cases reported since the beginning of the drug war in 2006. In response to the silence and impunity from the state, family members have been forced to organize in order to advance in the search for their relatives and for justice. Most of these family members are women. The aim of this study is to analyze women’s experiences of organizing as relatives to the forcefully disappeared in Mexico to explore possible connections between organization and empowerment. Empowerment is here understood from a feminist perspective, as a transformative factor that gives women increased feelings of ‘power to’, ‘power with’ and ‘power within’. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five women organized in four different family members’ organizations in Mexico. The results were analyzed against a theoretical framework consisting of previous research and theories on women’s organizing in Latin America, focusing on strategic and practical gender interests and theories on women’s empowerment, from a feminist and sociologist perspective. The analysis revealed that through the process of organizing, women developed a critical consciousness and access to new skills and resources that resulted in the women becoming more active, political and empowered subjects. The results also showed that despite women’s reasons for organizing being originally practical, to find their loved ones, during the process of organization, these reasons became more strategic and political, as a result of the empowerment process. The study concludes that women’s collective action is a source of empowerment even within organizations that does not have this as an outspoken aim and that the collectives of family members have provided a space for women to become active, conscious and critical citizens.

Magister Legum - LLM (Criminal Justice and Procedure) / Enforced disappearances are a heinous violation of numerous human rights enshrined in many international conventions. However, they have not been adequately addressed in many jurisdictions. This crime is very common within countries on the continent of Africa, which despite having plenty of conflicts, under report cases of enforced disappearances. This research paper investigates the transitional justice mechanisms implemented in Uganda to deal with the phenomenon of enforced disappearances. It analyses the mechanisms implemented by the Government of Uganda and those by Non- Governmental Organisations. The paper examines also how the phenomenon of enforced disappearances has been dealt with in other countries such as Morocco, Kenya and South Africa. The paper suggests several recommendations to Uganda after having made a comparison with the selected countries on how to deal with the crime of enforced disappearances.

No marco do direito internacional dos direitos humanos, a presente dissertação de mestrado analisa o desaparecimento forçado de pessoas, que, em razão de constituir grave violação de direitos humanos, foi tipificado crime contra a humanidade. Desse modo, tem por fim verificar o surgimento desse fenômeno nos regimes ditatoriais da América Latina, e o tratamento dispensado a ele pela comunidade internacional, observando-se a interdependência de ramos do direito internacional face ao desaparecimento. Ademais, visa a fazer uma aproximação entre memória e direitos humanos, temática intrinsecamente relacionada com o desaparecimento forçado de pessoas. Nessa perspectiva, apresenta uma análise dos casos de desaparecimento julgados pela Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos com vistas à sua compreensão acerca do direito à verdade, extraindo-se a afinidade desse direito com a construção de memórias. Dessa maneira, este estudo considera a relação direta entre a manipulação de memórias do passado, pelo ocultamento dos fatos relativos a crimes da natureza do desaparecimento forçado, e as violações de direitos humanos que ocorrem no presente. / Within the framework of international human rights, this thesis analyzes the enforced disappearance of persons, which was typified as a crime against humanity due the fact of being a serious violation of human rights. Thus, it aims to determine the emergence of this phenomenon during dictatorial regimes in Latin America, and its treatment by the international community, emphasizing the interdependence between different international law branches to the disappearance. Moreover, it aims to make a connection between memory and human rights, a theme closely linked to enforced disappearance of persons. Through this perspective, it presents an analysis of disappearance cases judged by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in order to depict its understanding about the right to the truth, extracting the affinity of this right with the construction of memory. Accordingly, this study considers the relationship between the manipulation of memories about the past through the concealment of facts related to enforced disappearance crimes, and ongoing human rights violations.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo discorrer a respeito dos desdobramentos da operacionalização dos voos da morte na Argentina, durante a última ditadura civil-militar daquele país, entre os anos de 1976 a 1983. É possível afirmar que os voos da morte configuraram, simultaneamente, uma prática de desaparecimento, extermínio e ocultação de cadáveres de opositores políticos em poder do Estado, escolhida, planejada e sistematizada pelos militares que tomaram o poder através do golpe de Estado em 1976. A metodologia empregada nesta prática de desaparecimento variou conforme o tempo e as condições apresentadas nos centros clandestinos de detenção (CCD). Levando-se em consideração esse fato, foi uma opção do presente trabalho debruçar-se mais pormenorizadamente no caso mais emblemático, a ESMA, a Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada, um dos maiores campos de concentração ativos durante o período da ditadura militar. Para as considerações deste trabalho, foram analisados documentos produzidos pelo Judiciário argentino relativos aos julgamentos dos repressores acusados de crimes de lesa-humanidade, assim como testemunhos pessoais de repressores e sobreviventes da ESMA. A prática dos voos da morte e suas consequências são transcendentes ao espaço físico que ocuparam os CCD. Estes desdobramentos ultrapassam inclusive os limites territoriais da própria Argentina, devido ao fato de que através das correntes marítimas do Rio da Prata e do Oceano Atlântico, cadáveres foram levados às praias do Uruguai, nação que também à época vivia sob um regime ditatorial. Além de uma metodologia de desaparecimento, os voos da morte também podem ser entendidos como uma metodologia de ocultação de cadáveres, como permite compreender o caso dos corpos lançados no delta do rio Paraná, na província de Entre Rios, e as diversas testemunhas das aparições e dos lançamentos. Há também o caso dos cadáveres aparecidos na costa brasileira, em abril de 1978, documentados por jornalistas, que levantam suspeitas a respeito da conivência das autoridades brasileiras com a ocultação dos restos mortais das vítimas dos voos da morte. Para as considerações sobre estes desdobramentos, são analisadas fontes testemunhais O entendimento do funcionamento dessa metodologia de desaparecimento e ocultação de cadáveres é fundamental para a compreensão destes desdobramentos citados. / This paper aims to discuss about the developments of the operation called "death flights" in Argentina, during the last civil-military dictatorship in that country between the years 1976 to 1983. It can be said that the “death flights” configured simultaneously, a practice of disappearance, death and concealment of corpses of political opponents by the state. This methodology used in the practice of disappearance varied as time and the conditions in the Clandestine Detention Centers (CCD). Taking into account this fact, it was an option of this work to address in more details the most emblematic case, the ESMA (Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada), one of the largest active concentration camps during the period of military dictatorship. For considerations of this work, documents produced by argentine courts at the time of the trials of repressors accused of crimes against humanity, as well as personal testimonies of repressors and survivors of ESMA were analyzed. The practice of the “death flights” and its consequences transcend the physical space that occupied the CCD. These developments even beyond the boundaries of Argentina itself, due to the fact that through the currents of the Rio de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean, corpses were taken to the beaches of Uruguay, a nation that also at the time lived under a dictatorial regime. In addition of being a methodology of disappearance, the “death flights” can also be understood as a methodology of concealment of corpses, once is it possible to understand the case of the bodies thrown into the Parana River delta, in the province of Entre Rios, and several witnesses of the apparitions. There is also the case of the corpses appeared on the Brazilian coast, in April 1978, documented by journalists, raising suspicions about the connivance of the Brazilian authorities with the concealment of the remains of victims of the “death flights”. For consideration of these developments, witness sources are analyzed. The understanding of the operations of disappearance methodology and concealment of corpses is essential to understand these developments cited.

La présente thèse de doctorat prend pour objet d’étude la question des disparus de la fin de la guerre d’Algérie, en l’occurrence, à partir du cessez-le-feu du 19 mars jusqu’à la fin de l’année 1962. Ne pouvant restreindre notre investigation à cette seule période, nous avons élargi notre étude aux conséquences des disparitions. Cette démarche, qui a le mérite de suivre l’événement tragique de son apparition à sa prise en compte par les autorités et la société, avec son retentissement jusqu’à aujourd’hui se déroule en trois parties. La première partie « chercher les disparus » (chapitres 1 à 3), revient sur les recherches, par les autorités compétentes, de la personne physique ou de sa dépouille disparue d’une part, et présente d’autre part la relégation du fait de « chercher les disparus » en un objet de recherche scientifique. Les abus de langage liés à la polysémie du mot « disparu », la surenchère statistique et les usages politiques et mémoriels sont également mis en lumière afin de comprendre les raisons de cet angoissant mystère. La deuxième partie présente les modes opératoires adoptés, tels que les enlèvements et les arrestations arbitraires, afin de « faire disparaître » (chapitres 4 à 6). Les différents auteurs, cibles et mobiles de ces exactions sont ainsi examinés. Enfin, la troisième partie « vivre la disparition » (chapitres 7 à 9) revient essentiellement sur les répercussions économiques et psychologiques pour les familles et les proches confrontés, entre autres, à des problèmes pécuniaires, au poids des rumeurs et au deuil impossible lequel est lié à l’incertitude du sort des « ni morts, ni vivants ». / This doctoral thesis aims to study the issue of the people who went missing at the end of the Algerian War, namely from the cease-fire of 19 march until the end of 1962. As we were not able to restrict our investigation to this period alone, we expanded our study to the consequences of the disappearances. This approach, which follows the tragic event from its outset to its recognition by the authorities and society, including its impact to date, is in three parts. The first part, « searching for the disappeared » (chapters 1-3), revisits the search by the relevant authorities for the missing individual or their remains, and the relegation of the « search for the disappeared » to an object of scientific research. The misuse of language linked to the multiple meanings of the word « disappeared », statistical escalation and the political and memorial uses of the issue are also highlighted in order to understand the reasons behind this agonizing mystery. The second part presents the procedures used, such as abductions and arbitrary arrests, to « make people disappear » (chapters 4-6). The different perpetrators, targets and motives of these abuses are also examined. Finally, the third part « living with disappearance » (chapters 7-9) focuses largely on the economical and psychological repercussions for families and loved ones, which includes financial problems, rumors and the impossibility of mourning due to the uncertainty of the fate of « those who are neither dead nor alive ».

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo discorrer a respeito dos desdobramentos da operacionalização dos voos da morte na Argentina, durante a última ditadura civil-militar daquele país, entre os anos de 1976 a 1983. É possível afirmar que os voos da morte configuraram, simultaneamente, uma prática de desaparecimento, extermínio e ocultação de cadáveres de opositores políticos em poder do Estado, escolhida, planejada e sistematizada pelos militares que tomaram o poder através do golpe de Estado em 1976. A metodologia empregada nesta prática de desaparecimento variou conforme o tempo e as condições apresentadas nos centros clandestinos de detenção (CCD). Levando-se em consideração esse fato, foi uma opção do presente trabalho debruçar-se mais pormenorizadamente no caso mais emblemático, a ESMA, a Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada, um dos maiores campos de concentração ativos durante o período da ditadura militar. Para as considerações deste trabalho, foram analisados documentos produzidos pelo Judiciário argentino relativos aos julgamentos dos repressores acusados de crimes de lesa-humanidade, assim como testemunhos pessoais de repressores e sobreviventes da ESMA. A prática dos voos da morte e suas consequências são transcendentes ao espaço físico que ocuparam os CCD. Estes desdobramentos ultrapassam inclusive os limites territoriais da própria Argentina, devido ao fato de que através das correntes marítimas do Rio da Prata e do Oceano Atlântico, cadáveres foram levados às praias do Uruguai, nação que também à época vivia sob um regime ditatorial. Além de uma metodologia de desaparecimento, os voos da morte também podem ser entendidos como uma metodologia de ocultação de cadáveres, como permite compreender o caso dos corpos lançados no delta do rio Paraná, na província de Entre Rios, e as diversas testemunhas das aparições e dos lançamentos. Há também o caso dos cadáveres aparecidos na costa brasileira, em abril de 1978, documentados por jornalistas, que levantam suspeitas a respeito da conivência das autoridades brasileiras com a ocultação dos restos mortais das vítimas dos voos da morte. Para as considerações sobre estes desdobramentos, são analisadas fontes testemunhais O entendimento do funcionamento dessa metodologia de desaparecimento e ocultação de cadáveres é fundamental para a compreensão destes desdobramentos citados. / This paper aims to discuss about the developments of the operation called "death flights" in Argentina, during the last civil-military dictatorship in that country between the years 1976 to 1983. It can be said that the “death flights” configured simultaneously, a practice of disappearance, death and concealment of corpses of political opponents by the state. This methodology used in the practice of disappearance varied as time and the conditions in the Clandestine Detention Centers (CCD). Taking into account this fact, it was an option of this work to address in more details the most emblematic case, the ESMA (Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada), one of the largest active concentration camps during the period of military dictatorship. For considerations of this work, documents produced by argentine courts at the time of the trials of repressors accused of crimes against humanity, as well as personal testimonies of repressors and survivors of ESMA were analyzed. The practice of the “death flights” and its consequences transcend the physical space that occupied the CCD. These developments even beyond the boundaries of Argentina itself, due to the fact that through the currents of the Rio de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean, corpses were taken to the beaches of Uruguay, a nation that also at the time lived under a dictatorial regime. In addition of being a methodology of disappearance, the “death flights” can also be understood as a methodology of concealment of corpses, once is it possible to understand the case of the bodies thrown into the Parana River delta, in the province of Entre Rios, and several witnesses of the apparitions. There is also the case of the corpses appeared on the Brazilian coast, in April 1978, documented by journalists, raising suspicions about the connivance of the Brazilian authorities with the concealment of the remains of victims of the “death flights”. For consideration of these developments, witness sources are analyzed. The understanding of the operations of disappearance methodology and concealment of corpses is essential to understand these developments cited.