Celia del Palacio
“Academics prefer to keep a low profile and avoid being identified as potential targets of attacks.”
In this interview Celia del Palacio tells us about the challenges of addressing violence against academics in Mexico and gives an account of its invisibilisation and naturalisation in a context marked by impunity and risks and the consequent fear of doing research into critical issues. Celia points to the normalisation of this type of attacks and the lack of university policies to address this problematic as serious factors that hinder an appropriate response and support for the victims.
Let us begin with an introduction about your background and your research work on violence in Mexico.
After having done research into the history of the press in Mexico, in the past few years I have been engaged in the study of violences against journalists at the subnational level. On this issue, I have published, in addition to several articles in academic and scientific journals, a book entitled “Callar o Morir en Veracruz. Medios de Comunicación y Violencia durante el Sexenio de Javier Duarte, 2010-2016” (2018) and I have also coordinated a book called “Violencia y periodismo en las regiones de México” (2015), which is a comparative study in which 15 academics from different parts of the country, including myself, analyse violences against journalists.
In addition, I have worked on violence represented in images and published the book of young photographer Félix Márquez, “Testigo de la violencia.” I have recently edited a book with interviews to family members of people disappeared in the region of Orizaba-Córdoba in Veracruz, which contains photographs of mothers with their children. The book is entitled “Porque la lucha por un hijo no termina…”
In a context such as the Mexican one, exhibiting a significant number of attacks against human rights defenders and journalists, what is the situation of academics that work from a critical perspective on issues that can be inconvenient for some actors?
As almost anyone in Mexico, academics are at risk. As anthropologist María Eugenia de la O would say, “accumulated and densely articulated violences” are experienced in Mexico, and the population’s feeling of insecurity, while it has decreased as compared with previous quarters, is still considerable as of March 2021. According to the National Survey on Urban Public Safety (ENSU-INEGI), 66.4% of the population older than 18 considers that living in their city is unsafe (with a higher percentage of women experiencing this feeling— 71%— as compared with men—60.9%).
Thus, in this respect, the situation faced by academics is no different from that of the majority of the population. Having studied violence against journalists for 9 years, I can state that the aggressions come from different attackers and are based on different reasons. No generalisations can be made that are true for all regions.
With respect to the university context, it should be pointed out that, unlike other countries in Latin America, an agreement has been in place in Mexico since 1968 between the government and left-wing professors that took refuge in universities and had “permission” to voice their opinions. In other words, they were protected by the state as long as they remained within the limits set by the universities . Until now, attacking a university professor has a high cost for the state. The same holds true for higher education students; that is why Ayotzinapa marked a watershed. However, academics have been the subject of attacks, even though they have not been visibilised. In fact, it is necessary to distinguish between the different settings in which academics face violence.
First, there is the contextual violence in which academics carry out their work, and to which they are subjected because “they are in the wrong place with the wrong person.” Second, academics also face violence as a consequence of their research topics. Moreover, there is a further distinction based on the actors that exercise violence against academics, such as organized crime or other criminal actors, in addition to the authorities themselves.
Why do you think that the intimidations experienced by those who work in academia have not been made more visible, as is the case with human rights defenders and journalists? Are these cases underacknowledged? If so, what do you think the reason is?
They are undoubtedly underacknowledged. These issues have only recently become a matter of concern in Mexico and it is anthropologists that have begun to systematise them. The academics at CIESAS (Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology; see website here) published some time ago some articles on this issue in their journal “Desacatos.” In those articles, the authors take an in-depth look at anthropology work in violent times and analyse the new issues, new subjects of study and the ethical dilemmas to deal with them. However, only a few of the authors directly address the dangers, threats or intimidations experienced. This work is supplemented by a series of videos coordinated by Victoria Novelo, but they do not provide a detailed account of the attacks. (“Trabajo de campo en tiempos violentos,” 2001. The videos can be watched here).
In addition, when I started to do research into this issue and I wanted to interview colleagues that I knew or had heard that had been the target of attacks because of their research work, I was quite surprised to find that they denied having been attacked; they even denied knowing someone that had experienced those violences. Only a few colleagues agreed to share their experiences.
I think that the main reason for their concealment is fear. Academics prefer to keep a low profile and avoid being identified as potential targets of attacks. In other cases, there is a clear tendency to minimise the risk, as academics fear they might be branded as alarmist or exaggerated. Violence is so naturalised in our contexts that an attack can be perceived as inevitable, “normal.” Perhaps other academics prefer to deny and forget what happened, act as if the attacks had never happened.
In your research work, you have analysed in depth the features and forms of violence systematically experienced by journalists in Mexico. What similarities and differences do you find with the situations of risk faced by researchers and university professors in Mexico?
Academics in Mexico that study violences, corruption of state agents, organised crime—in particular, anthropologists doing field work—are the ones that are most exposed to violence. In this respect, their situation is similar to that of journalists that are out reporting a story and become the victims of aggressions, as they are in the midst of a conflict over land or power between different actors, or as collateral victims when they are interviewing a potential victim of the constituted and factual powers. Journalists and academics are also victims of criminal violence just like the rest of the population, and finally, the same as journalists, academics can be the target of attacks as a result of their research issues. While it is true that both journalists and academics working on the above-mentioned issues are more likely to be the subject of attacks, on some occasions, journalists and academics can also be attacked for seemingly “innocent” issues, whose risk cannot be perceived at first sight.
Invisibilising a problematic usually makes it difficult to find alternatives or strategies to cope with it. What resources or strategies are used by those academics facing threats or intimidations?
Many researchers that work in risky regions have suspended their field work. Others have had to introduce themselves to criminals or their representatives so as to be allowed to enter the areas controlled by them. Others have even changed their research topics and addressed them from a theoretical perspective or have written publications on other topics, so as not to be identified as authors writing about issues related to violence and/or corruption and/or collusion of state agents with organised crime. Even students have stopped working on risky topics.
I have interviewed several researchers about these risk situations and many of them have acknowledged that they take personal protective measures, including the following: Personal safety measures, such as not travelling alone but with a team and reporting with family members and colleagues on a regular basis.
A researcher working on violence issues noted that one must find other ways of carrying out research, conduct interviews and obtain signed informed consents, conduct interviews publicly and refrain from doing interviews including information that can compromise the researcher or the sources, as violence-related interviews are closely connected with police investigations and they can turn out to be highly compromising. One of my interviewees recommended that “one should not play the hero and seek to reveal things that were never told before.” This kind of attitudes is not useful and can be very costly for the researcher and his or her family. The researchers interviewed pointed out that one must know how to tell things and look for carefully thought narratives that pose no risks to anyone.
Several interviewees have stressed that it is important to increase awareness for risk with students that are inexperienced in these issues and want to undertake risky research. It is important to make them aware of the risk to which they expose themselves so that, if they finally decide to carry out the research, they can do so with the appropriate protection measures and tools.
Along these lines, a good strategy to minimize risks is to do interinstitutional research and research with non-governmental organisations and governmental institutions in large teams. Researcher Severine Durin narrates how she managed to overcome the moments of crisis: “Movilising my emotional resources, but also my intellectual ones, was an important part of my fight to recover my life space and the security to which I am entitled.” (Violencia generalizada y desplazamiento forzado en el noreste de México, CIESAS, 2019, p. 42). She also joined a human rights civil organization, which was of great help to her.
The most difficult cases are those in which organised crime takes over a university or parts of a university, infiltrates its agents and abducts professors and students to blackmail the authorities. This was the case of the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas some years ago. The authorities took partial protection measures, such as closing the university campuses before 7 pm. However, the remedy was to replace the authorities (at middle management level), who were already too exposed and were easily traceable by the criminals, as they were the ones that had the funds and paid the ransoms. Removing them from their positions can be understood as a mechanism of protection. The centralisation of economic resources in the highest authority was essential, as was the adoption of clear rules for managing those resources. A further contribution was the federal government’s implementation of transparency and account rendering policies. The infiltration of organised crime in universities is an understudied issue.
What is the role or the reaction of universities or academic institutions in Mexico when one of their researchers is a victim of threats or some other form of harassment?
So far, researchers themselves have concealed or minimised the attacks they have endured and universities have taken no action at the institutional level. The academics at CIESAS were the only ones that took protective measures. They held discussion tables in order to decide what to do. The outcome of those tables, as discussed above, was the publication of Issue No 38 of their “Desacatos” journal (2012), coordinated by María Eugenia de la O, the preparation of a series of videos coordinated by Victoria Novelo: “Investigar en tiempos violentos” and of a safety protocol for academics and students.
In general, academics have taken their own safety measures. Faced with harassment from governmental authorities (who also engage in aggressive behaviour), institutions remain on the sidelines and it is the colleagues themselves the ones that organise protest measures such as demonstrations or press releases.
What recommendations do you have for universities and authorities in order to address these cases and provide researchers with support/protection?
I find the measures adopted by CIESAS highly recommendable: establishing general protection protocols and special instances to accompany and deal with the different cases, both from a legal and a psychological perspective. Not many researchers speak about the stress and suffering they experienced as a result of the attacks, but these and other feelings are undoubtedly present and require proper treatment. Visibilisation is also important and making public security demands for students and academics is essential.