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Disappearance Studies Conference

(part of a series)

Location: Jenkins Nanovic Halls and Hesburgh Center for International Studies

Black and white photo of a group of women holding signs during a protest. Each sign displays a photo of a man and the words "¿Dónde Están?" (Where are they?) with dates, suggesting they are missing persons. The women appear concerned and determined.
Women from the Group of Missing Relatives demonstrate outside the Government Palace in Chile during the Pinochet Military Regime. Photo by Kena Lorenzini via Wikimedia Commons.

Academic Committee: Roddy Brett, Josefina Echavarría Álvarez, Élise Féron, Bahar Baser, Liridona Veliu Ashiku

The Journal of Disappearance Studies, in collaboration with the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, invites you to attend its inaugural conference, on September 29-30, 2025, at the University of Notre Dame.

This landmark event marks the official launch of the Journal of Disappearance Studies, edited by scholars affiliated with the University of Bristol, Durham University, and the University of Tampere, which offers an interdisciplinary platform to examine the phenomenon of disappearance worldwide. The conference will convene scholars, practitioners, policymakers, families of the disappeared, and advocacy organizations to explore the socio-political, cultural, and economic dimensions of disappearance.

Quick links:

Monday, September 29

9:45 AM – 10:15 AM: Opening remarks – Room 1050, Jenkins Nanovic Halls

  • Colin Barr, Thomas Moore and Judy Livingston Director, Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies; Professor of Modern Irish History, Keough School of Global Affairs
  • Roddy Brett, Editor-in-Chief, The Journal of Disappearance Studies; Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies

10:30 AM – 12:00 PM: Panel 1, Memory, Art, and Embodied Testimony – Room 1050, Jenkins Nanovic Halls

  • Alison Ribeiro de Menezes – From Disappearance to Disappearability: Natalia Beristáin’s Ruido (Noise, 2023)
  • Cheryl Lawther – The Political Lives of Ireland’s Missing: Ownership, Agency and the Demands of the Dead
  • Teri Murphy – Ritual Landscapes: Returning the Disappeared of Colombia
  • Portia Chigbu – For Those Washed Away: State Obligations in Addressing Involuntary Disappearances During Natural Disasters
  • Chair: Josefina Echavarría Álvarez

12:00 PM – 1:15 PM: Break

1:30 PM – 3:00 PM: Panel 2, Power, Politics, and Mobilization – Room 1050, Jenkins Nanovic Halls

  • Bahar Baser, Shivan Fazil and Élise Féron (online) – Missing in the Shadows: Forced Disappearances of Yezidis and the Search for Truth
  • Carlos Martin Beristain – Experiences and lessons learned in the psychosocial dimension of the search for missing persons in Latin America (Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia)
  • Carmen Hassoun Abou Jaoude – The National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared in Lebanon: Challenges and Opportunities
  • Gerasimos Tsourapas – Colonial Legacies and Authoritarian Circulations in Libya’s Disappearance Regime
  • Chair: Ernesto Verdeja

3:00 PM – 3:30 PM: Break

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM: Evening Keynote – Hesburgh Center Auditorium

  • “La Búsqueda de los Desaparecidos: Un Derecho Humano Fundamental” (“The Search for the Disappeared: A Fundamental Human Right”) by Luz Janeth Forero Martinez, Director General of the Search Unit for Missing Persons in Colombia
  • Moderated by Josefina Echavarría Álvarez

4:30 PM – 6:00 PM: Reception – Jenkins Nanovic Halls Forum

Tuesday, September 30

9:00 AM – 10:30 AM: Panel 3, Legal and Forensic Responses to Disappearance – Room 1030, Jenkins Nanovic Halls

  • Lauren Dempster (online) – Forensic Scientists in Transitional Justice: Challenges and Possibilities in the Search for the Disappeared
  • Gunes Dasli & Nisan Alici (online) – Understanding Political Responses to Enforced Disappearances in Divided Societies
  • Mónica E. Nuño Nuño – Jalisco and Enforced Disappearances: A Nonstop Forensic Crisis
  • Chair: Roddy Brett

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM: Break

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM: Panel 4, Irish Perspectives on Disappearance – Room 1030, Jenkins Nanovic Halls

  • Sandra Peake – Orchestrated loss and the Disappeared of Northern Ireland’s Conflict
  • Dympna Kerr – My brother Columba
  • Orla Lynch – Victims of political violence – a very public trauma
  • Phil Scraton (online) – Disappearance, Loss and Searching: the Cruel Legacy of Mother and Baby Institutions
  • Jennifer O’Mahoney – Disappearing girls and women: Gendered state violence and the ethics of institutional memory in postcolonial Ireland
  • Chair: Orla Lynch

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM: Book Launch – Room 1030, Jenkins Nanovic Halls

1:30 PM – 3:00 PM: Panel 5, Feminist & Gendered Approaches to Disappearance – Room 1050, Jenkins Nanovic Halls

  • Élise Féron (online) – Feminist Approaches to Disappearances - Epistemologies of Activism and Resistance
  • Anush Petrosyan (online) – War that Lingers: The Embodied Legacies of the Armenian - Azerbaijani Conflict
  • Salina Kafle – Gendered Dimensions of Enforced Disappearances in Nepal: Addressing the Challenges of Women Survivors in Transitional Justice
  • Tinotenda Chisambiro (online) – The Stories of the Forgotten: Gendered Narratives of Disappearances in the Second Chimurenga
  • Chair: Julia Kowalski

3:00 PM – 3:30 PM: Break

3:30 PM – 5:00 PM: Panel 6, Unresolved Absence and the Search for Meaning – Room 1050, Jenkins Nanovic Halls

  • Cath Collins – “Seeking ‘Destino Final’: The Limits of Resolution in Enforced Disappearances across Latin America”
  • Julie Bernath (online) – Syrian women’s everyday practices of ‘accounting for’ the disappeared
  • Vilho Shigwedha – Missing people, amnesty, and reconciliation politics: The case of disappearance and unmarked war graves in northern Namibia
  • Chair: Emma Murphy

5:30 PM – 6:30 PM: Evening Keynote – Hesburgh Center Auditorium

  • “Disappearance as individual, social and political trauma” by Simon Robins
  • Moderated by Guillermo Trejo

Registration for the conference is free but required. Please contact Elizabet Campos Duarte at eduarted@nd.edu to register.

Bios and Abstracts

Nisan Alici — University of Derby

  • Position/Title: Lecturer
  • Panel: Legal and Forensic Responses to Disappearance
  • Title: Understanding Political Responses to Enforced Disappearances in Divided Societies
  • Abstract: This paper explores how political responses to enforced disappearances unfold in divided societies where conflict remains unresolved, or peace is partial and fragile. It asks: How do different stages of conflict—post-agreement versus ongoing violence—shape the state’s willingness to respond to demands for truth and accountability?
  • Short Bio: Nisan Alici is an Lecturer at the University of Derby, specialising in grassroots approaches to transitional justice. She completed her PhD in Transitional Justice at Ulster University, where her thesis examined victim-centred approaches within the ongoing Kurdish conflict.

Colin Barr — University of Notre Dame

  • Position/Title: Professor of Modern Irish History
  • Short Bio: Colin Barr is professor of modern Irish history in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and the Thomas Moore and Judy Livingston Director of the Keough School's Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies.

Bahar Baser — Durham University

  • Position/Title: Professor
  • Panel: Power, Politics, and Mobilization
  • Title: Missing in the Shadows: Forced Disappearances of Yezidis and the Search for Truth
  • Abstract: This article examines the plight of the Yezidi community in Iraq, with a particular focus on the issue of enforced disappearances and the challenges of mobilization around this cause. In the aftermath of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) genocide—recognized by many countries and international bodies—thousands of Yezidis remain missing, leaving their families in a state of enduring uncertainty.
  • Short Bio: Bahar Baser is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Durham University, where she also serves as Director of the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (IMEIS) and Global Lead for Internationalisation at the School of Government and International Affairs.

Julie Bernath — University of Basel & Swiss Peace Research Institute

  • Position/Title: Senior researcher
  • Panel: Unresolved Absence and the Search for Meaning
  • Title: Syrian Women’s Everyday Practices of ‘Accounting for’ the Disappeared
  • Abstract: The scale and horror of enforced disappearances in Syria came to the forefront of international attention following the unforeseen, rapid collapse of the Assad regime. While the release of the surviving detainees of Assad’s prisons carried incredible hope for relatives of the disappeared across Syria and abroad, it has led to heartbreak and grief for those found dead, and deep pain, distress, and shock as the vast majority remains missing.
  • Short Bio: Julie Bernath is a senior researcher at swisspeace and lecturer at the political science institute of the University of Basel. She is the coordinator of the SUPPSAL project (Supporting the psychosocial and mental wellbeing of displaced Syrian women dealing with ambiguous loss), an interdisciplinary research project of swisspeace, the Syrian feminist NGO Women Now for Development and the Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University of Beirut.

Carlos Martin Beristain — University of Deusto in Bilbao

  • Position/Title: Professor
  • Panel: Power, Politics, and Mobilization
  • Title: Experiences and lessons learned in the psychosocial dimension of the search for missing persons in Latin America (Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia)
  • Abstract: This initiative will address psychosocial work criteria through an interdisciplinary lens, focusing on the investigation of enforced disappearances, the search for missing persons, and comprehensive support for victims, including family participation in search processes and criminal investigations, drawing lessons from experiences in Guatemala, Mexico, and Colombia.
  • Short Bio: Physician and doctor in psychology. Coordinator of the Guatemala Never Again Report (Guatemala), was a member of the Experts Group for the Ayotzinapa case in Mexico (43 students disappeared), former commissioner of the Colombian Truth Commission of Colombia.

Roddy Brett — University of Bristol

  • Position/Title: Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies
  • Panel: Legal and Forensic Responses to Disappearance
  • Short Bio: Roddy Brett is a Pofessor in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Bristol. He is trained as an anthropologist (through a scholarship to the University of Cambridge) and political scientist (through a scholarship to the University of London) and now works from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Portia Chigbu — Notre Dame Law School

  • Position/Title: JSD(Doctoral) Candidate
  • Panel: Memory, Art, and Embodied Testimony
  • Title: For Those Washed Away: State Obligations in Addressing Involuntary Disappearances During Natural Disasters
  • Abstract: Does the State have an obligation to trace and identify missing bodies in the aftermath of natural disasters? This paper argues in the affirmative, emphasizing the responsibilities of national governments in addressing cases of missing casualties in the aftermath of natural disasters.
  • Short Bio: Portia is a Doctoral Candidate at Notre Dame Law School. She is an academic researcher and attorney who earned her LL.B degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where she finished with honors. Portia completed her LLM at Notre Dame Law School in 2023, finishing with honors and an award of excellence for being the best student in Legal Research Writing.

Tinotenda Chisambiro — University of Zimbabwe

  • Position/Title: Junior Lecturer
  • Panel: Feminist and Gendered Approaches to Disappearance
  • Title: The Stories of the Forgotten: Gendered Narratives of Disappearances in the Second Chimurenga
  • Abstract: There is no doubt that politically induced disappearances and abductions have been a pertinent issue in Zimbabwe. Scholarship on disappearance studies in Zimbabwe and beyond primarily focuses on men's experiences.
  • Short Bio: Tinotenda Chisambiro is a Junior Lecturer in the Department of Peace, Security and Society within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Zimbabwe. Her academic work and teaching focus on a wide range of themes within peace and security studies.

Cath Collins — Universidad Diego Portales, Ulster University

  • Position/Title: Professor of Transitional Justice
  • Panel: Unresolved Absence and the Search for Meaning
  • Title: Seeking 'Destino Final': The Limits of Resolution in Enforced Disappearances across Latin America
  • Abstract: Recent Latin American developments including the tracing of abducted children, the discovery of mass burial sites, and state search initiatives to look for the detenidas/os desaparecidas/os of the 1970s and 1980s have forced us to grapple with the question of whether, and when, an enforced disappearance can be considered to have come to an end.
  • Short Bio: Cath Collins founded and has directed the Observatorio Justicia Transicional of the Universidad Diego Portales since 2008. She is also Professor of Transitional Justice at Ulster University's Transitional Justice Institute. She divides her time between Belfast and the South of Chile.

Gunes Dasli — Loughborough University

  • Position/Title: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  • Panel: Legal and Forensic Responses to Disappearance
  • Title: Understanding Political Responses to Enforced Disappearances in Divided Societies
  • Abstract: This paper explores how political responses to enforced disappearances unfold in divided societies where conflict remains unresolved, or peace is partial and fragile. It asks: How do different stages of conflict—post-agreement versus ongoing violence—shape the state’s willingness to respond to demands for truth and accountability?
  • Short Bio: Güneş Daşlı is a CARA Research Fellow in the Department of International Relations, Politics, and History at Loughborough University. She completed her PhD at the Center for Reconciliation Studies from Jena University, Germany, in 2023.

Lauren Dempster — Queen's University Belfast

  • Position/Title: Senior Lecturer
  • Panel: Legal and Forensic Responses to Disappearance
  • Title: Forensic Scientists in Transitional Justice: Challenges and Possibilities in the Search for the Disappeared
  • Abstract: Forensic scientists are often central to efforts to locate, exhume, and identify the remains of the disappeared. Despite this key role, the relationship between forensic scientists and transitional justice remains under-explored and there exists a gulf between the expectation of what forensic experts can achieve, and the reality.
  • Short Bio: Lauren Dempster is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). She is Thematic Lead of the School’s Transitional Justice research cluster and Co-director of QUB’s Human Rights Centre. Her research focuses on transitional justice. Lauren currently holds an Arts & Humanities Research Council Fellowship on Forensic Scientists and Knowledge Production in Transitional Justice.

Josefina Echavarría Álvarez — University of Notre Dame

  • Position/Title: Director of the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM)
  • Panel: Memory, Art, and Embodied Testimony
  • Short Bio: Josefina Echavarría Álvarez is Professor of the Practice and the Director of the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM), Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame. As the director of PAM, she leads PAM’s researchers, faculty and staff in the South Bend campus, as well as PAM’s field units that carry out official monitoring of the implementation of peace accords in real time in Colombia and Mindanao.

Luz Janeth Forero Martínez — Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas dadas por Desaparecidas (UBPD)

  • Position/Title: General Director
  • Title: “La Búsqueda de los Desaparecidos: Un Derecho Humano Fundamental” (“The Search for the Disappeared: A Fundamental Human Right”)
  • Abstract: This talk presents the work of Colombia’s Search Unit for Missing Persons, a humanitarian and independent body created through victims’ advocacy in the peace process. Tasked with finding over 132,000 missing persons, it operates amid ongoing conflict, limited resources, and vast geographic challenges. Despite these obstacles, thousands of bodies and living persons have been recovered, underscoring the central role of victims and the Unit’s mission to ensure families do not continue their search in solitude.
  • Short Bio: Physician with training in forensic medicine, specialist in epidemiology and PhD in Legal Sociology. She has held different positions such as Director General of the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Advisor to the Counselor for Women's Equity, among others, and is currently the Director General of the Search Unit for Missing Persons.

Shivan Fazil — Boston University

  • Position/Title: PhD Student
  • Panel: Power, Politics, and Mobilization
  • Title: Missing in the Shadows: Forced Disappearances of Yezidis and the Search for Truth
  • Abstract: This article examines the plight of the Yezidi community in Iraq, with a particular focus on the issue of enforced disappearances and the challenges of mobilization around this cause. In the aftermath of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) genocide—recognized by many countries and international bodies—thousands of Yezidis remain missing, leaving their families in a state of enduring uncertainty.
  • Short Bio: Shivan Fazil is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at Boston University, specializing in comparative politics and international relations with a focus on the Middle East. His work centers on governance, state-society relations, and peace and conflict dynamics.

Élise Féron — Ulster University

  • Position/Title: Professor and Director of INCORE
  • Panel: Feminist and Gendered Approaches to Disappearance
  • Title: Feminist Approaches to Disappearances - Epistemologies of Activism and Resistance
  • Abstract: The presentation provides an overview of the various issues highlighted in the feminist literature on disappearances, touching on intersectionality, emotional and social impacts, and the role of activism in seeking justice.
  • Short Bio: Élise Féron is Professor and Director of INCORE (International Conflict Research Institute) at Ulster University. Her research interests include feminist peace research, diaspora politics, and the multiple entanglements between conflict, violence and peace, including the long-term consequences of disappearances.

Carmen Hassoun Abou Jaoude — Saint Joseph University of Beirut

  • Position/Title: Lecturer
  • Panel: Power, Politics, and Mobilization
  • Title: The National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared in Lebanon: Challenges and opportunities
  • Abstract: In April 2025, Lebanon marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, in a country still grappling with conflict and violence. One of the most painful and lasting consequences of the war (1975-1990) and the Pax Syrian period (1990-2005) is the unresolved issue of disappeared persons.
  • Short Bio: Carmen Hassoun Abou Jaoudé is a political scientist and lecturer in transitional justice at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut (USJ). She is an associate researcher at the Center for the Study of the Modern Arab World (CEMAM-USJ).

Salina Kafle — Human Rights and Justice Centre

  • Position/Title: Executive Director
  • Panel: Feminist and Gendered Approaches to Disappearance
  • Title: Gendered Dimensions of Enforced Disappearances in Nepal: Addressing the Challenges of Women Survivors in Transitional Justice
  • Abstract: Nepal’s decade-long armed conflict (1996–2006) witnessed widespread and systematic human rights violations, with enforced disappearances constituting one of its most pervasive and devastating crimes. Post-conflict, transitional justice mechanisms were formally established to address these violations; however, their trajectory has been marred by politicization, ineffectiveness, and a failure to engender victim trust.
  • Short Bio: Salina Kafle is a Nepali human rights lawyer with over a decade of experience working on issues of gross human rights violations, transitional justice, and accountability. She has represented victims in landmark cases before United Nations human rights mechanisms and has played a pivotal role in advancing their implementation.

Dympna Kerr

  • Panel: Irish Perspectives on Disappearance
  • Title: My Brother Columba
  • Abstract: This presentation shares the personal story of my brother, Columba McVeigh, who was abducted and murdered by the IRA in 1975 and remains among the Disappeared. It reflects on nearly five decades of searching, the enduring pain of uncertainty, and the unbroken hope of one day bringing him home to rest.
  • Short Bio: Dympna Kerr is the sister of Columba McVeigh, one of the so-called Disappeared who were abducted, murdered, and secretly buried by the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Columba, only 19 at the time, was abducted in Dublin on October 31, 1975, and his remains have never been recovered. For nearly five decades, Dympna has been a tireless advocate for truth, remembrance, and the dignified return of her brother.

Julia Kowalski — University of Notre Dame

  • Position/Title: Associate Professor of Global Affairs
  • Panel: Feminist & Gendered Approaches to Disappearance
  • Short Bio: Julia Kowalski is an Associate Professor at the Keough School of Global Affairs and a cultural anthropologist. Her research uses ethnographic methods to explore intersections between gender, politics, expertise, and kinship in India as well as in transnational development organizations.

Cheryl Lawther — Queen's University Belfast

  • Position/Title: Professor of Transitional Justice
  • Panel: Memory, Art, and Embodied Testimony
  • Title: The Political Lives of Ireland’s Missing: Ownership, Agency and the Demands of the Dead
  • Abstract: This paper examines the political lives of the missing children of Ireland’s institutional abuse scandal, drawing on Verdery’s (2000) notion of ‘dead body politics’. Focusing on the 836 children buried at Bessborough and the 796 at Tuam, it situates the missing as ‘boundary objects’ between the Church, State, families, and forensic experts (Moon 2013).
  • Short Bio: Cheryl Lawther is Professor of Transitional Justice in the School of Law and a Fellow of the Senator George J Mitchell Institute at Queen's University Belfast. Her research interests concern truth recovery and dealing with the past, victims, ex-combatants, reparations, atrocity sites and the politics of dead bodies.

Orla Lynch — University College Cork Ireland

  • Position/Title: Professor Criminology
  • Panel: Irish Perspectives on Disappearance
  • Title: Victims of Political Violence, a Very Public Trauma
  • Abstract: Being a victim of political violence is fundamentally being the victim of an extremely traumatic attack. However, being a victim of terrorism also mean being a public victim, because it is the personal and social identity of the victim, that is often relevant to their victimhood.
  • Short Bio: Orla Lynch is Professor of Criminology and the Dean of Doctoral Studies at UCC. Orla's background is in International Security Studies and Applied Psychology; her primary training is as a social psychologist. She studied at both the University of St Andrews (MLitt) and University College Cork (Phd).

Alison Ribeiro de Menezes — University of Warwick

  • Position/Title: Professor of Hispanic Studies
  • Panel: Memory, Art, and Embodied Testimony
  • Title: From Disappearance to Disappearability: Natalia Beristáin’s Ruido (Noise, 2023)
  • Abstract: This paper considers the iconography of disappearance in Natalia Beristáin’s 2023 film, Ruido (Noise). The movie follows the story of Julia (Julieta Egurrola) who is searching for her missing daughter in Mexico.
  • Short Bio: Alison Ribeiro de Menezes is founding Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Warwick and Deputy Chair (Research) of the Faculty of Arts. Her research focuses on cultural memory in Spain and Latin America.

Emma Murphy — University of Notre Dame

  • Position/Title: Postdoctoral researcher
  • Panel: Unresolved Absence and the Search for Meaning
  • Short Bio: Emma Murphy is a postdoctoral researcher with the Kroc and Keough-Naughton Institutes. She currently works with the Legacy
  • Project to explore the lessons of the Colombian transitional justice process for Northern Ireland. Her research sits at the intersection of transitional justice, agonistic theory, and gender with a focus on institutional design for transitional justice mechanisms.

Teri Murphy — The Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University

  • Position/Title: Associate Director for Peacebuilding Research
  • Panel: Memory, Art, and Embodied Testimony
  • Title: Ritual Landscapes: Returning the Disappeared of Colombia
  • Abstract: During Colombia’s armed conflict (1985-2018), an estimated 121,768* individuals were victims of forced disappearance—abducted, tortured, killed, and, in many cases, dismembered. Military, paramilitary, guerrilla groups, and narco-traffickers used disappearance as a tactic, often targeting vulnerable civilians to instill fear and control territories.
  • Short Bio: Teri Murphy is the Associate Director for Peacebuilding Research at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. She has been actively engaged in conflict intervention and peacebuilding in several international contexts for the past 30 years.

Mónica E. Nuño Nuño

  • Panel: Legal and Forensic Responses to Disappearance
  • Title: Jalisco and Enforced Disappearances: A Nonstop Forensic Crisis
  • Abstract: In 2006, the former president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, announced the decision to start a war against drugs. This policy triggered a wave of violence that has yet to cease, and the cases of enforced disappearances have increased such that today there is a registry of 113,764 disappeared people in Mexico.
  • Short Bio: Mónica E. Nuño is a Mexican lawyer who recently obtained her master's degree in human rights from the University of Notre Dame, where she focused her research on the issue of enforced disappearances. Her professional practice has focused on international law and human rights.

Jennifer O’Mahoney — South East Technological University

  • Position/Title: Senior Lecturer in Psychology
  • Panel: Irish Perspectives on Disappearance
  • Title: Disappearing Girls and Women: Gendered State Violence and the Ethics of Institutional Memory in Postcolonial Ireland
  • Abstract: Framing disappearance as a process rather than a discrete event, the paper draws on oral histories, spatial analysis, and survivor-informed initiatives such as the Waterford Memories Project to explore the residual afterlives of these institutions.
  • Short Bio: Dr Jennifer O’Mahoney is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at South East Technological University (SETU), Co-Director of the Crime and Justice Research Group, and Senior Researcher at INSYTE. A Chartered Member of the Psychological Society of Ireland, she specialises in narrative psychology, victimology, and the ethics of institutional memory.

Sandra Peake

  • Panel: Irish Perspectives on Disappearance
  • Title: Orchestrated Loss and the Disappeared of Northern Ireland’s Conflict
  • Abstract: The presentation examines the impact of disappearances during the Northern Ireland conflict, highlighting debates around whether they were sanctioned by republican paramilitary leadership or occurred as sporadic, local initiatives. It focuses on the coercive control faced by families—through silence, threats, disinformation, and stigma—and explores disappearance as a distinct form of loss, offering a framework for understanding and responding to families’ experiences.
  • Short Bio: Sandra Peake is CEO of the WAVE Trauma Centre, the only regional NGO in Northern Ireland supporting those bereaved or injured in the Conflict. A nurse by background, she holds a BSc and MSc in Nursing and a PhD on the Disappeared of Northern Ireland’s Conflict. She is Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University.

Anush Petrosyan — Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI)

  • Position/Title: Researcher
  • Panel: Feminist and Gendered Approaches to Disappearance
  • Title: The War that Lingers: The Embodied Legacies of the Missing of the Armenian- Azerbaijani Conflict
  • Abstract: Violent conflicts and wars are, first and foremost, corporeal experiences that profoundly affect human lives, leaving millions of people worldwide vulnerable each year. The Armenian - Azerbaijani conflict is no exception.
  • Short Bio: Anush Petrosyan is a Doctoral Researcher at the Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI), Tampere University, Finland, and a member of the Re-(E)MBody Research Project. Her research focuses on memory in post-conflict reconciliation, memorialization, and peace processes, with a particular interest in the intergenerational transmission of memory in post-conflict societies‚ especially in contexts of displacement and enforced disappearances.

Simon Robins — International Committee of the Red Cross / University of York

  • Position/Title: Research Advisor / Research Fellow
  • Title: Disappearance as Individual, Social and Political Trauma
  • Abstract: This talk seeks to reframe disappearance as not only a human rights violation but as a profound individual, social, and political trauma. Drawing on the concept of ambiguous loss, which describes the unresolved absence of a missing person who is physically gone yet psychologically present, it aims to show that - unlike individualized trauma - disappearance is a relational, collective experience, shaped by external context.
  • Short Bio: Simon Robins is a practitioner and researcher who for two decades has combined academic research with a consulting practice focusing on evaluation and programme support with international agencies. He is a Research Advisor to the Red Cross Red Crescent Missing Persons Centre, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York.

Phil Scraton — School of Law, Queen's University Belfast Ireland

  • Position/Title: Professor Emeritus
  • Panel: Irish Perspectives on Disappearance
  • Title: Disappearance, Loss and Searching: The Cruel Legacy of Mother and Baby Institutions
  • Abstract: In October 2021 the Northern Ireland Assembly appointed a three-person independent Truth Recovery Panel to research the context and reality of mother and baby institutions, Magdalene Laundries and workhouses in the North of Ireland, working closely with 'victims/survivors'.
  • Short Bio: Phil Scraton is Professor Emeritus, School of Law, Queen’s University. His critical social research includes deaths in custody; prisons and incarceration; childhood, rights and justice. His numerous books and reports include Hillsborough: The Truth; Power, Conflict and Criminalisation; The Violence of Incarceration; The Incarceration of Women; Truth, Acknowledgement and Accountability – Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses; Childhood, Transition and Justice.

Vilho Shigwedha — University of Namibia

  • Position/Title: Senior Lecturer
  • Panel: Unresolved Absence and the Search for Meaning
  • Title: Missing People, Amnesty, and Reconciliation Politics: The case of Disappearance and Unmarked War Graves in Northern Namibia.
  • Abstract: In pursuit of reconciling a new nation, emerging from a dark history, in March 1990, SWAPO which emerged victorious following Namibia’s first democratic elections announced the policy of national reconciliation.
  • Short Bio: Vilho Amukwaya Shigwedha is a senior lecturer and researcher at the University of Namibia. His areas of interest in research include genocide and heritage studies, the history of the liberation struggle in Southern Africa. His publications include, among others, “The return of Herero and Nama bones from Germany: the victims' struggle for recognition and recurring genocide memories in Namibia”, in Human remains in Society, Manchester University Press (2018); “The missing are not dead yet: Efraim Kapolo and the Impossibility of Disappearing Without a Trace”, Kronos (2018).

Gerasimos Tsourapas — University of Birmingham

  • Position/Title: Chair and Professor of International Relations
  • Panel: Power, Politics, and Mobilization
  • Title: Colonial Legacies and Authoritarian Circulations in Libya’s Disappearance Regime
  • Abstract: Enforced disappearances are often treated as a purely domestic aberrations or transitional justice concerns. This article reframes disappearances as a transnational infrastructure of authoritarian rule: a system through which states assert sovereign power, script ideological boundaries, and render opposition illegible across borders.
  • Short Bio: Gerasimos Tsourapas is the 125th Anniversary Chair and Professor of International Relations at the University of Birmingham, and Editor-in-Chief of Migration Studies (Oxford University Press). A 2025–26 Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, he works at the intersection of international politics and human mobility, with particular focus on migration and diaspora politics, as well as Middle East foreign policy.

Guillermo Trejo — University of Notre Dame

  • Position/Title: Professor of Political Science
  • Short Bio: Guillermo Trejo is Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and Director of the Violence and Transitional Justice Lab (V TJ Lab) at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Trejo’s research focuses on political and criminal violence, social movements, human rights, and transitional justice in Mexico and Latin America.

Ernesto Verdeja — University of Notre Dame

  • Position/Title: Associate Professor of Peace Studies and Global Politics
  • Panel: Power, Politics, and Mobilization
  • Short Bio: Ernesto Verdeja is an Associate Professor of Peace Studies and Global Politics at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on the causes and prevention of genocide and mass atrocities, and on transitional justice.
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