Ambiguous Loss and Embodied Grief Related to Mexican Migrant Disappearances

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, thousands of Latin Americans have died or disappeared along the US-Mexico border, following the funneling of migration through remote desert regions. The families of missing migrants face long-term “ambiguous loss,” a lived experience in which a loved one is physically absent but psychologically present. Mexican relatives of the missing in Arizona and Sonora report that these losses produce deep emotional suffering along a timeline – worrying about the crossing, learning of the disappearance, beginning to search, and finally, coping with the long-term impacts of unknowing. Close relatives experience embodied health effects including headaches, insomnia, anxiety, depression, and chronic disease.

RESUMEN

Desde finales de los 90s, miles de latinoamericanos han muerto y desaparecido en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México en su intención de migrar a través de la remota región del desierto de Sonora. Las familias de los migrantes desaparecidos enfrentan una “pérdida ambigua” de largo plazo, una condición psicológica en la que una persona está físicamente ausente pero psicológicamente presente. Miembros de familias en Arizona y Sonora reportan que estas pérdidas producen un profundo sufrimiento emocional a lo largo del tiempo – al preocuparse por el cruce, enterarse de la desaparición, buscar del desaparecido(a), y finalmente hacer frente a los impactos de largo plazo de lo incierto. Los familiares experimentan efectos encarnados a su salud, que incluye dolores de cabeza, insomnio, ansiedad, depresión y enfermedades crónicas.

KEYWORDS:

• Disappearance
• ambiguous loss
• embodiment
• migration
• emotion

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• Desaparición
• pérdida ambigua
• encarnación
• migración
• emoción

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the dedicated staff of the Colibrí Center for Human Rights who supported this research by helping with recruitment, providing background and contextual information, reviewing interview guides, and ensuring a safe and trusting environment in which to speak with families. In addition, we are very grateful to Isabella Fassi for her careful and skilled work in research assistance and transcription as well as students from the Social Work Department of UANL and David Marrero for his review of this manuscript. And finally, we thank the families who opened their hearts to share their powerful stories with us. This research was approved by the Internal Review Board (1811137579) of the University of Arizona in January 2019.

Notes

1. “Coyotes” is a commonly understood term in the US-Mexico border region for hired guides who lead individuals and groups across the border to set locations or pick-up points.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a research grant from the Programa de Investigación en Migración y Salud (PIMSA).

Notes on contributors

Rebecca M. Crocker

Rebecca M. Crocker is a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Public Health at the University of Arizona. She takes a multi-disciplinary and action-oriented approach to studying the relationship between migration and health amongst Mexican immigrants, with a focus on the emotional experience of migration, traditional healing modalities, death and disappearance at the border, and the heavy burden of chronic disease. Address correspondence to: Rebecca M. Crocker, University of Arizona Center for Border Health Disparities, 1295 N Martin Ave, P.O.Box 210202 Tucson AZ 85724 . [email protected].

Robin C. Reineke

Robin C. Reineke is Assistant Research Social Scientist in Anthropology at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Center. Her research, focused along the US-Mexico border, centers on the science and technology of forensics, the social impact of death and disappearance, and the politics of mourning. Her research builds upon more than a decade of ethnographic research and community engagement in southern Arizona, which included co-founding the Missing Migrant Project in 2006 and the Colibrí Center for Human Rights in 2013.

María Elena Ramos Tovar

María Elena Ramos Tovar is a sociologist in the Faculty of Philosophy and Fine Arts of the Universidad Autónoma of Nuevo León. She pursues research on the human rights, psychic structure, and welfare of transnational migrant families within Mexico as well as the impact of the neoliberal model on organizational culture and social interaction and health in Mexican public higher education institutions. She is the author of two books: Desafíos de la frontera México-Estados Unidos: Economía, Cultura y Mujeres (2000) and Migración e Identidad: Emociones, Familia, Cultura (2009).