Missing persons and peacebuilding: The transformative role of families of the missing

Abstract This article investigates the critical and often overlooked role of families of missing persons in peacebuilding when the hostilities of armed conflict cease. The unresolved fate of missing persons creates ambiguous loss, a state of chronic psychological and social uncertainty that structurally impedes communal recovery and undermines the fragile foundations of peace. While the issue of missing persons is typically framed as a humanitarian and legal challenge, this study argues that families of the missing are uniquely positioned to act as transformative peacebuilding agents. Drawing on primary data collected across three distinct settings – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, and Nepal – the study employs a qualitative, comparative case study methodology. It analyzes how families of the missing, driven by the imperative of establishing the fate of their loved ones, actively engage across conflict divides and contribute to lasting social and political transformation. Findings demonstrate that the search for the missing necessitates engagement with individuals and groups on the opposing side, effectively forcing the creation of cross-community relationships. Families of the missing successfully overcome deep-seated suspicion, hostility and sometimes political pressure from their own communities to forge solidarity, based on shared experience of loss, with other families. This process enables relational reciprocity and the cognitive reframing of former enemies, leading to the humanization of the “other”. These encounters produce profound personal and interpersonal transformation, which in turn can catalyze the challenging of antagonistic community-level narratives and support broader societal reconciliation. Families of the missing leverage their legitimacy and humanitarian framing of the issue to become powerful agents of structural change. They challenge exclusive, one-sided interpretations of conflict, advocate for a universal and broad vision of justice, and demand truth-telling and accountability. By acknowledging victimhood on all sides and articulating an understanding of peace based on mutual recognition of suffering, families help to heal social divisions and address the root causes of conflict. Through their focus on truth-seeking and cross-community relationship-building, families of the missing can make an essential contribution to the prevention of renewed conflict and the establishing of a foundation for sustainable peace.