Conceptual contributions Emotions and feelings in the fight for memory of the Mothers of ‘false positives’ of Suacha and Bogotá (MAFAPO)

Abstract

At the beginning of 2018 a group of women created MAFAPO, which stands for Madres de ‘Falsos Positivos’ de Suacha y Bogotá. The group is integrated by women relatives of men killed in the so-called ‘false positives’: a practice where the National Army of Colombia recruited and murdered civilians that were presented as casualties killed in combat; for these killings the military received rewards. This text combines tools from the anthropology of emotions with memory studies in order to set the importance of the emotional dimension in the claims of MAFAPO. These women demand truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of no repetition, in a constant battle against oblivion. With this in mind, the article analyzes testimonies that show a political dimension of emotions.