V. [u]nf_3 is a tool explicitly designed for Mexican trackers of clandestine graves. The preliminary functional model, was made after the activities of Las Rastreadoras de El Fuerte [Trackers from El Fuerte], a community – predominately made of women – that since 2014 and under the guidance of Mirna Medina, have been searching for graves around the city of Los Mochis, in the northern state of Sinaloa.
V. [u]nf_3 consists of a collaborative and participatory audio-visual cyber-cartography for mobile systems and a data-visualisation website. And materialises as a tool + online-space created for documenting expeditions of individuals – embedded in close-knitted communities – looking for clandestine graves.
The app registers text, audio, video, and geo-locates data. The website is the archive, visualising, and systematising data recorded: private histories that, altogether, construct the chronicles of the whole community.
V. [u]nf_3 allows for reinforcing citizen-empowerment through the building of an individual + collective data-cartography; strengthening the community through the shared experience of reviewing and analysing outcomes from data-recollection; breaking the digital exclusion through learning-while-using the app + website; experiencing a bespoke social software made for the specificity of their search practices; creating an expedition-archive through this user-generated content + metadata tool; building resistance against oblivion and neglect while constructing a digital-memorial that will honour their loved ones when registering their histories.
The objective of Vis. [un]necessary force_3 is to provide a bespoke digital tool for communities looking for victims of forced-disappearance in Mexico. This tool would allow them to build a private database made after their individual experiences on-site – recording of oral/verbal elements as well as photographs, videos, and sound elements – and to create a space of collective memory.
In a broader level, these groups of civilians publicly express that they are not looking for offenders but only for the remains of their family members. In that sense, with V. [u]nf_3, they would be able to create a digital archive which will facilitate comprehending the dimension of these systematic crimes – and that eventually could be used in future trials.
With V. [u]nf_3 trackers may transition from a community using offline tools, to a digital-community with a private digital space where to store, archive, classify and memorialise data gathered during their expeditions.
These are specific goals of the project that are aligned with some of the strategies of trackers.
[1] To reinforce their processes and tracking strategies continuously. Trackers have been quite successful in finding clandestine graves. Nevertheless, they recognize the need to geolocate the areas where clandestine graves were found, the conditions of those graves, among other data that is important for the process of each individual found, and to plan new explorations.
[2] To improve their communication tools, making them safer. These collectives use social media and instant messaging for communication, which makes them prone to be traced by cartel and police/military members, which don’t want clandestine graves to come to public light. These communities are under permanent threat, and some of their members have been assassinated.
[3] To make a community-based archive of victims of forced-disappearance, while they protect and organize the data they originate. They require to file all information that has emerged – and that keeps appearing with every expedition – in a database that may be shared with other collectives.
Rastreadoras and other trackers are Mexican individuals that come from all sorts of life – school teachers, doctors, mechanics, etc. – that were transformed into hunters after having lost a family member – victim of forced-disappearance.
Satellite participants are social scientists and social workers that are part of the network of supporters of these collectives and that eventually may help on the interpretation of data recovered by trackers.
Rastreadoras emerged spontaneously after Mirna Medina – exhausted of not having any response from the authorities on the whereabouts of her son Roberto Corrales Medina, abducted on July 14, 2014 – started looking for him. She searched not just in hospitals and detention centres, but also on the open fields surrounding El Fuerte and Los Mochis. Soon other women started joining her and launched this micro-community with one only thing in common: looking for their loved ones – husbands, sons, fathers, daughters – in the open desert of Sinaloa.
Rastreadoras acquired skills and knowledge they never thought they would require before the abduction of their family members. They became experts in searching graves in the wild, in recognizing human bones, in dealing with the press and government officials, and in legal processes attached to their findings.
V. [u]nf_3 is a tool designed specifically for Rastreadoras community, but that also can be used by other collectives in Mexico that perform similar expeditions on-site. And it is the outcome of a long process of collaboration I have been developing with this community. V. [u]nf_3 is at his core, a project that advocates for a systemic inclusion of digital citizenship, and it was designed taking into account concerns like data privacy, security, internet, and on-site safety during their expeditions.
It is important to note that Rastreadoras make expeditions into the countryside twice a week – sometimes even more – looking for clandestine graves. And occasionally they travel to nearby towns and cities to help other trackers that may not have the same experience on site as them. In each expedition – that may have a duration of up to eight hours, sometimes even more – 15+ women get together at their headquarters to grab their tools and organize the trip. And only when vehicles are on the way, they decide and communicate to the other members which areas are going to visit. Sometimes these points are selected after information provided anonymously, referring to specific areas where clandestine graves could be found.
Security is one of the most critical elements of the activities of these collectives. They use social media – Facebook and Twitter – and instant messaging – WhatsApp – for their communication purposes allows them to be public. Still, they do not give any information before their expeditions. Once on-site, Mirna Medina is the only one among the group allowed to use FB and WhatsApp to share their discoveries with other tracker collectives. They generally share images of personal objects, like clothing or shoes. When bodies are found, she also shares fragments of corpses that may present tattoos or other particulars, intending to facilitate somebody else recognizing such a recovered person.
However, some problems arise when using commercial social media apps, and Rastreadoras are aware of them. [1] These groups are the target of censorship by FB when they share and eventually viralise info – the so-called sensitive images – among trackers-communities nationwide. Eventually, their personal accounts are blocked by FB administrators. [2] There is no privacy in their activities, and FB and other apps monetise the data generated by them. And [3] in terms of security, Rastreadoras are sharing sensitive information about their whereabouts and activities – there are many cases of trackers murdered in Mexico.
Expeditions may be "negative" when tipoffs are misleading or "positive" in the case they find a grave. If an expedition is called "negative," Rastreadoras go back to their headquarters and prepare a late communal lunch. If the expedition is "positive," a whole protocol takes place, which includes documentation, calling the press, calling government officials – in Mexico, only the official forensic workers can legally exhume and retrieve human remains. Rastreadoras stay on-site, guarding the grave until the whole process is finalised.
The idea when designing V. [u]nf_3 was to build a private community social-media app, that may allow for a private community space, made after the specific dynamics of Rastreadoras and other collectives going through the same process. These groups already have a sense of community – built through their joint-expeditions and their legal and emotional support groups.