Pedagogía Forense

“Pedagogía Forense” (Forensic Pedagogy) is a project created by the independent Mexican Team for Forensic Anthropology (EMAF) to confront the impunity and current crisis of violence in Mexico:

“In a Mexico crossed by the disappearance of persons, society has demanded that the authorities take the necessary actions to find them. The majority of families with disappeared relatives live in uncertainty: not only about the whereabouts of their loved ones but also the uncertainty provoked by the absence of order within the corresponding investigations by state authorities, evidenced by the very few localised and identified persons. Sadly, many families have even lost the hope to find their disappeared ones alive. Still, terms like “forensics” or “forensic anthropologist” have become commonplace for them.
However, the identification of disappeared persons does not solely depend on experts in anthropology: it is the result of a concise investigation in which other forensic disciplines intervene. Pedagogía Forense explains to families and interested society in which the forensic investigation consists and what every included science can achieve in particular, as well as the role of every actor within the investigation. Thereby the balance between families and authorities can be equilibrated, controversies can part from a common language and more informed and punctual demands can be made.”

In 2019 the project received funding from the German ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) in order to enable a series of pilot workshops with three different self-organised collectives of relatives in search for the disappeared in Mexico. Through the experience of these workshops a pedagogic manual, a practical guide for the collectives and a corresponding website with videos about the project and its main topics were created. Jan-Holger Hennies closely collaborated with the EMAF throughout the entire project as a general consultant and was responsible for filming the workshops and co-producing the videos and the concept for the web platform.

visit

Visit website (Spanish only): pedagogiaforense.emaf.org.mx