Documentary noir in the city of fear: Feminicide, impunity and grassroots communication in Ciudad Juarez

Abstract

The emergence of a systematic campaign of horrific violence directed at women and girls in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez has become a focus of intense media and activist attention over the last two decades. While the mainstream media devoted much attention to ravaged bodies and sensational theories, state officials reacted to the crimes with a victim-blaming narrative that, activists have argued, provided a lethal accelerant to the violence. This paper explores the role of documentary film in the investigation and politicization of the murders and disappearances of women in Juarez. Along with activists and journalists, critical documentary filmmakers have been among the primary investigators of the crimes. In this paper, I argue that these grassroots media practices have been instrumental in opening spaces of communication that have been enclosed by pervasive fear and systemic insecurity. I pay specific attention to the ways in which Lourdes Portillo’s 2001 documentary Señorita Extraviada interrogates the crimes politically. Through its critical, engaged approach to the aesthetics and politics of evidence, I argue, the film poses a counter-narrative to the neoliberal state’s discourse of responsibilization and individualization in a context of systemic insecurity.

Violence, emotion and place: The case of five murders involving sex workers

“…Second, despite the fact that three cases remain unsolved, the dynamics of homicide and violence against sex workers indicates the likelihood that unidentified perpetrators are male. As such, the case should also be considered as femicide constitutive of systemic male violence against women where men murder women in the context of patriarchy (Ingala Smith, 2013; Jeffries, 2013). Finally and relatedly, all of these young women were linked to sex work – the politics of which is central in explaining risk of violence and homicide for this group (Kinnell, 2008).…”

Feminicide in Mexico: An approach through academic, activist and artistic work

“…English-speaking specialists have recognized the relevance of the term 'feminicide' as contributing to the comprehension of the complexity of this matter when they refer to Mexican and other Latin American cases (Driver, 2011;Fregoso and Bejarano, 2010;Jeffries, 2013). Thus, the feminicidio definition is not just a Spanish version of 'femicide', but also a link to the structural and systemic conditions (globalization, development models and human development) that permit and cover up these murders and leave them invisible and unpunished.…”

The social nature of serial murder: The intersection of gender and modernity

“…Moreover, the state's failure to act means the murders are carried out with virtual impunity (Jeffries, 2013). Using the framework of femicide further emphasises the structural nature of this violence; femicide refers to the killing women as gendered subjects within the context of patriarchy (Radford and Russell, 1992).…”

“…Thinking more specifically about the connections between gender violence and neoliberalism, the mass serial murder of more than 300 plus young women in the 1990s and early 2000s in and around the Mexican city of Juarez reflects how 'capitalistpatriarchy' (Mies, 1996), evident in the mutually reinforcing axes of the gender order and the globalised political economy, effects systemic violence against women (Ensalaco, 2006;Jeffries, 2013). Ciudad Juarez has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the Americas and it is the main northbound corridor for the importation of drugs into the US (Vuillamy, 2003).…”

“…Using the framework of femicide further emphasises the structural nature of this violence; femicide refers to the killing women as gendered subjects within the context of patriarchy (Radford and Russell, 1992). Those writing about the murders in Juarez use the Spanish term feminicidio or femininicide (Fregoso, 2000;Schmidt-Camacho, 2010;Jeffries, 2013) which as 'a juridical term for gendered genocide, is a way of politicising the murders, making the excessive violence at once public and globally significant through mobilising the language of international law' (Jeffries, 2013: 304). In addition, Segato (2010) identifies the murders as expressive and as non-instrumental -an expression of gender domination, enabled by neo-liberalism, but sanctioned and legitimized by patriarchal forces.…”