Digging for Hope is a feminist ethnography based on nearly a decade of fieldwork with women-led search collectives in Mexico. R. Aída Hernández Castillo examines how these women confront disappearance through practices of exhumation, mourning, and collective remembrance, transforming grief into political action. The book explores a “pedagogy of love” grounded in care, solidarity, and memory, showing how search collectives create new forms of justice, resistance, and community while restoring dignity to the disappeared. It offers a powerful perspective on the gendered impacts of violence and the role of grassroots movements in challenging impunity.
Digging for Hope A Feminist Ethnography in the Land of Mass Graves
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Combining ethnohistory with a political-anthropological perspective, this essay examines the meaning that the historical event known as Mexico’s independence had for indigenous peoples in the land.
The dossier presents the organizational experience of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican women from Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero, who have created community spaces to confront various forms of violence and develop alternative forms of justice based on their own knowledge and experiences. Through the testimonies and reflections of those who participate in these spaces, the video shows how gender-based violence, racism, and institutional exclusion permeate women’s daily lives, especially when they seek access to justice, education, healthcare, or decent working conditions.