Social Mobilisation in Organized Crime Contexts: the Activism of Disappeared People’s Relatives in Mexico. The Case of Fuerzas Unidas Por Nuestros Desaparecidos En Coahuila Y En México.

How and under which conditions does social mobilization emerge in organized crime contexts? To answer this question I assume that a given territory (as an entire nation state or a particular region) characterized by organized crime presence can be considered as a particular type of high-risk context. The development of a multifactorial approach appears the best solution to analyse this kind of social mobilization rather than focus on macro or micro levels of analysis; rational or non-rational theories and structuralist or subjectivist paradigms. The explanation for collective action in high-risk context should involve multiple variables such as socio-political background, social networks and resource mobilizations, framing process, identity and emotions of activists. Focusing only on one factor could lead to a simplistic and inaccurate explanation of the topic. The research is based on a single case study: a group composed by relatives of victims of disappearance named Fuerzas Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos en Coahuila y en México, FUUNDEC-M. The group was born in 2009 in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, a region characterized by drug-related homicides, disappearance and institutional corruption. More specifically, the power of Los Zetas drug cartel consolidated during the PRI local governments of Humberto Moreira Valdes (2005-2011) and the interim tenure of Jorge Juan Torres López (2011). The close relationship between organized crime, local and federal institutions resulted in high level of impunity, subsequently causing social mobilization of victims’ relatives. The project is sustained by classical ethnographic methods such as in-depth interviews and participant observation. Thanks to 50 interviews mainly with victim’s relatives (but also with NGO’s activist, priest, journalist and academic professors) I try to understand their motivations, hopes, emotions, expectations, critique of the present and projection of the future (micro-mobilization features), moreover I made four months of participant observation in Coahuila, especially in the city of Saltillo and Torreón, and in México City. FUUNDEC-M’s documents and public statements, revision of journals, ONG’s report, documents and other materials are also used. Some preliminary results demonstrate that different variables could explain FUUNDEC-M emergence and development: firstly, the alliance with the Catholic Diocese of Saltillo, that has provided the group with resources and has expanded its network to others national and international organizations; secondly, the partial political openness and the focus on human rights developed by Ruben Moreira Valdes local government (2012-2017); finally, the specific condition of being victims’ relatives is fundamental to understand how FUUNDEC-M can sustain activism in such high-risk context: relatives managed to build collective identity based on the same experience of injustice and stigmatization and through the mobilization of their emotions, such as pain, anger and love for their desaparecidos.