Interaction rituals in contexts of violence: healing dolls as discursive materializations of pain and struggle in Veracruz, Mexico

Abstract

Since 2006, Mexico has experienced several cycles of criminal violence at the subnational level that have affected different actors and social groups. Among the many forms of violence in the country, the disappearance of persons is an extreme and repeated practice to which institutional responses have been insufficient. In this context, the state of Veracruz has repeatedly ranked among the entities with the highest number of reported cases. Faced with this human rights crisis, search groups for missing persons have become central actors in the struggle for memory, truth, and justice. This article aims to reflect on some of the practices carried out by the Orizaba-Cordoba Collective of Families of the Disappeared, with a special focus on the first ritual of healing dolls (small cloth figures made from the clothes of the disappeared) that are given to the mothers, sisters, and wives of the collective. The analysis is grounded on emotion theory, discourse studies, and a model of interaction rituals. From a qualitative methodology with an ethnographic approach and critical discourse analysis, the article shows how, in these types of processes marked by loss and pain, these interaction rituals enable the actors to reconfigure their emotions, strengthen emotional bonds and moral commitments, and generate the emotional energy necessary to sustain the search for their loved ones.