Trajetórias e experiências de familiares de pessoas desaparecidas

Abstract

This dissertation examines the disappearance of people in Brazil from the experiences, narratives, and resistance strategies of family members who live daily with absence, waiting, and searching. Anchored in a qualitative approach of an ethnographic nature, the study investigates how disappearance is produced and reproduced in contexts marked by social inequalities, racial hierarchies, territorial vulnerabilities, and institutional gaps. The research was developed through participant observation, in-depth interviews, field records, and monitoring of formative activities, public mobilizations, and meetings between family members, privileging sensitivE listening as an analytical and ethical tool. The dissertation explores the ways in which memory, suffering, care, and the struggle for recognition shape individual and collective practices in the face of absence, highlighting the emergence of solidarity networks, symbolic actions, and repertoires of resistance. At the same time, it analyzes the structural limitations faced by families—such as the fragmentation of public policies, investigative delays, insufficient protocols, and state negligence—highlighting how these factors deepen inequalities and produce forms of continued violence. Engaging with national and international literature on disappearance, social suffering, human rights, and reparation, this work proposes to understand disappearance not only as an event, but as a process that reorganizes temporalities, relationships, and subjectivities. From this perspective, I seek to argue that anthropological listening can contribute to renewing institutional practices, strengthening public policies, and promoting paths of dignity, memory, and justice for families. Keywords: disappearance; memory; families; anthropology;