The War on Both Sides

The War on Both Sides: Drug Addiction as Lived in Northern New Mexico and Mexico City

Angela Garcia, speaker

6 pm. Doors open, light reception in the lobby
7 pm. Presentation begins in the auditorium

This presentation considers the “drug war” from the vantage of two sites—a village in Northern New Mexico and a working-class neighborhood in Mexico City. It examines the unorthodox ways families care for addicted relatives and demonstrates how these are inseparable from broader social and political arrangements. In thinking comparatively about these two sites, this talk raises urgent questions about the nature of addiction, violence, care, and commitment.

Angela Garcia, PhD, is an associate professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. Her work engages historical and institutional processes through which violence and suffering are produced and lived. Her book, The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along the Rio Grande received the 2012 Victor Turner Prize and a 2010 Pen Center USA Award. The Pastoral Clinic explores the relationship between intergenerational heroin use, poverty, and colonial history in Northern New Mexico.

Special thanks to the Mellon Foundation and the Paloheimo Foundation for their support of this program.