Stories of the missing offer profound insights into the tension
between how political systems see us and how we see each other. The
search for people who go missing as a result of war, political
violence, genocide, or natural disaster reveals how forms of
governance that objectify the person are challenged. Contemporary
political systems treat persons instrumentally, as objects to be
administered rather than as singular beings: the apparatus of
government recognizes categories, not people. In contrast,
relatives of the missing demand that authorities focus on a
particular person: families and friends are looking for someone who
to them is unique and irreplaceable.
In Missing, Jenny Edkins highlights stories from a range of
circumstances that shed light on this critical tension: the
aftermath of World War II, when millions in Europe were displaced;
the period following the fall of the World Trade Center towers in
Manhattan in 2001 and the bombings in London in 2005; searches for
military personnel missing in action; the thousands of political
"disappearances" in Latin America; and in more quotidian
circumstances where people walk out on their families and disappear
of their own volition. When someone goes missing we often find that
we didn't know them as well as we thought: there is a sense in
which we are "missing" even to our nearest and dearest and even
when we are present, not absent. In this thought-provoking book,
Edkins investigates what this more profound "missingness" might
mean in political terms.
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