Project description
An ethnographic study of the ICMP’s work
Every year, millions of people around the world go missing as a result of conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organised crime, irregular migration, and other causes. The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) works with governments, civil society organisations and other groups throughout the world to address the issue of people who have gone missing. It has been involved in the excavation of thousands of mass and clandestine gravesites and has spearheaded the application of advanced forensic techniques to locate and recover missing persons. The EU-funded MissingFamilies project will conduct an ethnographic study of the ICMP’s work. It will study its civil society initiatives at its Hague headquarters and in Mexico, Colombia and Iraq. The focus will be on the ‘circulation’ of local experiences, knowledges and solidarity.
Objective
If people go missing, their families are left with big questions about someone’s status as being dead or alive. While families of missing persons are dependent on forensic experts and expertise to have their kin identified after mass fatality incidents (MFIs) like war or political violence, forensic experts cannot do their job without support of families. However, due to technical, political or financial constraints, forensic experts and their services often are unavailable in the wake of MFIs. In such circumstances, civil society organizations like family associations become advocates for forensic interventions or initiate forensic activities themselves. While local experience and knowledge are highly relevant for the global problem of missing persons, those experiences hardly flow from the local to elsewhere, including the global. In the proposed project MissingFamilies, I ethnographically attend to the work of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in The Hague by studying ICMP’s civil society initiatives at its Hague headquarters and in Mexico, Colombia and Iraq. Attending to civil society programs and stakeholders in the three mentioned countries, I focus on the “circulation” of local experiences, knowledges and solidarity to elsewhere, including the global. Seeking inspiration from Science and Technology Studies, and actor-network theory in particular, MissingFamilies contributes to empirical understanding of the global problem of missing persons and their surviving families; it adds new theoretical and conceptual vocabulary to the materialities of absence and presence; it furthers the notions of circulation and solidarity in the wake of MFIs; and provides opportunities to improve future MFI operations.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences law human rights human rights violations political violence
- social sciences sociology anthropology science and technology studies
- social sciences political sciences political policies civil society
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2019
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1012WX Amsterdam
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.