Painful Medicine: Treating Addiction in a Time of War

The next Culpeper Seminar Series lecture is next Wednesday, January 22, 2014 from 3:30 – 5:00 pm in the Laurel Heights Conference Room 474. Dr Angela Garcia, Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology at Stanford University, will give a seminar titled “Painful Medicine: Treating Addiction in a Time of War”. Over the last decade, there has been a sharp increase in drug addictions in Mexico, especially among the urban poor. During the same period, private, unregulated residential treatment centers for substance abuse, known as anexos, have proliferated throughout the country. These centers are utilized and run by Mexico’s poor and are widely known to engage in coercion and violence. Based on three years of ethnographic research, this talk provides an intimate look at anexos and their patients. It argues that pervasive conditions of violence and instability in Mexico has propelled anexos’ spread and has shaped its practices of therapeutic violence. By looking at the intersection of the drug war and the parallel growth of this informal therapeutic movement, this talk draws attention to the dynamic relationship between ‘violence’ and ‘recovery,’ ‘pain’ and ‘healing,’ and highlights how they are imagined and experienced together. This talk also addresses recent scholarship regarding the ethical dilemmas that are raised in working in such a setting. January 22, 2014 3:30 – 5:00 pm Laurel Heights Conference Room 474. All are welcome to attend.