Angela Garcia

Stanford University | SU · Department of Anthropology

This article considers an archive of letters written by three generations of female kin as offering a form for thinking about the nature of kin relations. It tells the story of how the archive came into being, and examines the ways writing and archiving makes visible the shifting relations that constitute kinship. Highlighting the narrative acts of...

Based on ethnographic research and critical reflection on Carlos Reygadas’s film Post Tenebras Lux, this article explores the texture and temporality of crisis and endurance in Mexico. Specifically, it traces the transformation of one of Mexico City’s ubiquitous anexos (annexes), which names coercive drug treatment centers run by and for the inform...

This article is an ethnographic account of an archive of prison letters written by three generations of female kin. Based on long-term ethnographic research in rural New Mexico, it describes the context in which the letters were written, as well as the desires, preoccupations, and practices that transformed them into an archive. I have placed a par...

Informal, coercive residential centers for the treatment of addiction are widespread and growing throughout Latin America. In Mexico these centers are called “anexos” and they are run and utilized by low-income individuals and families with problems related to drugs and alcohol. This article draws on findings from a 3-year anthropological study of...

A previously unknown Spanish-language mutual aid resource for substance use and mental health concerns is available in Latino communities across the USA and much of Latin America. This kind of '4th and 5th step' group is a 'culturally adapted' version of the 12-step programme and provides empirical grounds on which to re-theorise the importance of...

This article reports results from a preliminary ethnographic study of a new and largely unknown self-help organization for Latinos with substance use disorders, known as “4th and 5th Step Group” (in Spanish, Grupo de Cuarto y Quinto Paso, “CQ”). It describes the nature of CQ, aspects of group membership, and members' experiences of the organization...

Over the last decade, there has been a sharp increase in drug addiction in Mexico, especially among the urban poor. During the same period, unregulated residential treatment centers for addiction, known as anexos, have proliferated throughout the country. These centers are utilized and run by marginalized populations and are widely known to engage...

This article explores the changing nature of inheritance among Hispanos in northern New Mexico. Specifically, it examines how Hispano families have reworked the traditional application of inheritance, referring to property passed down the generations, to conceive of heroin addiction as ‘inherited’. It shows how this emerging formation of inheritanc...

Moral engagement in the setting of drug addiction is often at odds with prevailing moral discourse and is treated in punitive terms. In this article, I explore how one moral gesture—a promise between a heroin-using mother and daughter—embodies the difficulty and ambiguity of moral experience in the context of addiction and offers insight into how i...

The Pastoral Clinic takes us on a penetrating journey into an iconic Western landscape-northern New Mexico's Española Valley, home to the highest rate of heroin addiction and fatal overdoses in the United States. In a luminous narrative, Angela Garcia chronicles the lives of several Hispano addicts, introducing us to the intimate, physical, and ins...