This essay examines what happens when the disappeared, reappear. Using examples from various Latin American contexts, Northern Ireland and Spain, the text contrasts the divergent truth regimes, truth claims and sources of knowing that arise. Following Gatti, it discusses the various catastrophes – of language and of meaning – that may persist even when a forcibly disappeared person is discovered alive. The piece considers, in turn, how disappearances are administered, how they end, and the failure of restitution of remains or identity to fully dissipate radical uncertainty. Controversies arising from the paradoxical bestowing of enhanced visibility on the absent disappeared, and the victim hierarchies this creates, are discussed. So too is the question of the positionality of the forensic expert, and the credence given to forensic expertise. I argue that any mission to turn the disappeared back into still living persons, or safely deceased bodies, is in a certain sense doomed to fail.

中文翻译：

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失踪者的重新出现，遗骸的作用和法医凝视

本文探讨了消失，重新出现时会发生什么。通过使用来自拉丁美洲，北爱尔兰和西班牙的各种背景的示例，该文本对比了不同的真相制度，真相主张和由此产生的知识来源。继加蒂（Gatti）之后，它讨论了各种灾难-语言和意义-即使发现一个被迫失踪的人还活着，这些灾难可能还会持续。文章反过来考虑了失踪如何处理，失踪如何结束以及归还遗骸或身份以完全消除根本的不确定性的失败。讨论了因缺席消失而增强可见性的自相矛盾的论点引起的争议，以及由此产生的受害人等级制度。法医专家的位置问题以及对法医专业知识的信任度也是如此。