Archives of Desire

This chapter examines the engagement of women next of kin of forcibly disappeared individuals in Sri Lanka with the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms (CTF). The CTF was tasked with consulting on the design of four transitional justice mechanisms in 2016, including an Office on Missing Persons. Even though the government refused to respect the findings of this process, the chapter shows that the CTF generated a significant archive that can be probed as an ‘archive of desire’. This archive can help us to understand not only the demands of victim-survivors in relation to what form of justice or what kind of mechanisms they believe can deliver justice, but also the depth of affective feelings and investments underlying these demands. In post-war Sri Lanka, this archive continues to challenge and resist dominant narratives of denial and efforts to entrench impunity for forced disappearances. However, such archives equally serve as a resource to build solidarity across differences, to cultivate practices of listening to the ‘Other’, and to refigure the state towards recognising and redressing its sovereign violence.