Events

Past Event

Forced Disappearance and Governmentality Conference

February 6, 2025
8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
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Scheps Seminar Room, 4th Floor | Schermerhorn Extension, 1200 Amsterdam Avenue

The Social Study of Disappearance Lab at Columbia University's Anthropology Department will host a one-day conference on February 6, 2025 addressed to the phenomenon of disappearance as a problem for theories of governmentality. Though Achille Mbembe’s conceptual extension of biopower to necropower might take us some way into those aspects of sovereign power which subjugate life to the power of death, the special dynamics of disappearance require further specification, and conceptualization. This is because disappearance is not only the production of disposability, though it may rely on that: it centrally concerns the production of uncertainty by way of subtracting a person both from their social world and from governmental accounting, administration and regulation. Moreover, although forced disappearance is commonly associated with Cold War politics and military dictatorships, forced disappearance today frequently occurs through the acquiescence of government officials to the actions of non-state actors. Does state acquiescence to forced disappearance enacted by criminal organizations constitute a failure or a limit of governmentality, or something else? What is the relationship between disappearance, performances of sovereignty and the state's administrative and regulatory apparatus? Our hope for this event is to think together empirically, theoretically, and comparatively about forced disappearance and what it illuminates about forms of sovereignty in the contemporary world.

Location: Scheps Seminar Room, 4th Floor, Schermerhorn Extension

Registration is required for this event. Please register via the link here.