Jennifer L. Shoaff, Borders of Visibility: Haitian Migrant Women and the Dominican Nation-State (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2017), pp. xv + 188, $59.95, hb.
4 and 5) towards ‘giving a voice to the victims’ and the families who have resolutely taken the search for their loved ones into their own hands. Thus, one of the public roles of journalism is fulfilled: the therapeutic experience of being heard, of acknowledging the voices of the unheard. Nevertheless, there is a caveat in dealing with such an emotive charge: in a handful of passages Valdez rushes his interpretation and wavers between what German sociologist Norbert Elias calls ‘involvement’ and ‘detachment’. On the one hand, criminals are depicted as ‘addicted to killing’ (p. 161) or having an innate propensity to evil (pp. 169–70). On the other hand, el narco is characterised as ‘omnipresent’ (p. 189) or omnipotent: ‘El narco everywhere. El narco in charge’ (p. 65). The main problem of using suchmonstrous or godly features is that they foreclose all possibility of rendering these actions intelligible. After all, only God works in mysterious ways. At times Valdez mirrors, understandably, the urgency of a large part of Mexican society. It is no coincidence that throughout the book, Valdez’s interviewees feel the need to clarify that their disappeared relative ‘wasn’t a bad person’, to dispel any aspersions cast on them by a decade’s worth of the ‘war on drugs’ mentality. Nonetheless, Valdez resists and keeps asking questions, especially to those considered mala yerba (weeds), like the mother who declares that her murdered son ‘was young, and if he’d done something wrong, they should have arrested him and brought him before a judge’ (p. 119). Overall though, The Taken is an example of how local journalism can contribute to understanding Mexico’s most dire and complex problems by combining local knowledge, territorial specificity and the rich detail of in situ reporting with a flair for storytelling and the relentless effort of reporters like Valdez, who, until his assassination in May 2017, continued reporting, questioning and searching. This vocation is a collective effort. Throughout the book, Valdez draws on the work of fellow reporters from the media outlets of Sinaloa (Ríodoce, Noroeste, El Debate) and other states (Vanguardia, El Imparcial, El Diario de Juárez), as well as correspondents from national outlets such as La Jornada, Proceso, Pie de Página, among others. Hence the importance of supporting and defending local journalism.