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Janice K. Gallagher is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, and during AY 2021-22, she is a Democracy Visiting Faculty Fellow at Harvard University's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Gallagher specializes in comparative politics with a focus on state-society relations and human rights in Latin America. Her research includes extensive fieldwork in Mexico and Colombia, and she has previously worked as a human rights accompanier in Colombia.This is a great work in the classic tradition of law and society studies. It tracks the personal and social transformations that start with the experience of violent loss in a context of state incapacity or indifference, and shows how those transformations end up, partially at least, changing the state, constructing a new legality. It offers an intimate, and necessary, look at the struggle against impunity in a country wracked by loss and violence.
Daniel M. Brinks, Professor of Government and of Law, The University of Texas at Austin
Beautifully written and extremely timely, Bootstrap Justice explores the tragedy of forced disappearances in Mexico. Gallagher presents vivid micro histories that bring individuals' personal dramas to life without losing sight of the broader theoretical or structural points that these stories are an illustration of and conduit to. To achieve this, the author had to immerse herself in the case like no other scholar before her. This long and highly involved fieldwork paid off: the result is an incredibly rich account of drug-related and state-sponsored violence in Mexico, one that yields important lessons for scholars and activists alike.
Ezequiel González-Ocantos, Associate Professor in the Qualitative Study of Comparative Political Institutions, University of Oxford
Bootstrap Justice does the important work of centering the voices of people whose lives have been upended by the disappearance of a loved one. Gallagher's careful analysis of their stories shows how trauma can reconfigure what is imaginable, transforming expectations of the state and of ourselves as political subjects in turn. The book has broad implications for how we think about mobilization processes, the transformative role of grievances, and the development of political subjectivities.
Erica S. Simmons, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
How do people obtain justice in contexts of insecurity and impunity? In this remarkable and deeply researched book, Janice Gallagher unpacks the dynamic interaction between claim-making, collective action, and state responses amidst cases of enforced disappearances in Mexico. An important contribution to existing research on social movements, crime, and legal studies, Bootstrap Justice also honors lives—those whose whereabouts remain unknown, and those who marshal courage, social ties, and politics to fight for their rights as citizens and human beings.
Eduardo Moncada, Barnard College, Columbia University
Bootstrap Justice is deserving of a wide audience. It draws from across disciplines and fields of study, includinganthropology, political science, sociology, and social movement studies, which are put into conversation in a way that generates novel insight into one of the most pressing themes in the study of contemporary politics and society of Mexico. I find myself recommending Bootstrap Justice even to colleagues who are completely unconnected to Mexican studies, because the book exemplifies the best of a 'community-engaged' practice to which many scholars aspire. Bootstrap Justice contributes to the advancement of thinking across disciplines, for a network of scholars who are interested in dynamics of contentious politics in contexts of pervasive violence.
Nicholas Jon Crane, The Journal of Development Studies