Collective activism for an Illustrated Dictionary of La Búsqueda

This article examines the Illustrated Dictionary of La Búsqueda , a collaborative tool created through participatory workshops with three Mexican search collectives: families seeking disappeared loved ones. Drawing on feminist and decolonial methodologies, we trace how the Dictionary emerged from sustained dialogue between Técnicas Rudas, an interdisciplinary feminist organisation, and relatives of Mexico's 130,000 + disappeared persons. Through writing exercises, collage, and ritual practices conducted in Morelos, Puebla, and Sinaloa, participants developed a metalanguage that names the embodied, affective, and material dimensions of searching. Our use of the word metalanguage comes from Tecnicas Rudas methodological design and points to something bigger than language itself, created by and for the collectives. We analyse how this counter-archive challenges official narratives that reduce disappearance to statistics, instead foregrounding families’ epistemic authority. The Dictionary functions simultaneously as memory work, political intervention, and intergenerational toolkit, demonstrating how grassroots epistemologies can inform policy, pedagogy, and transnational solidarity movements. We reflect on the possibilities and limitations of arts-based methods in contexts of systemic violence whilst advocating for funding models that respect collective autonomy.