Monthly Archives: March 2022

I like how the author opens up the writing giving a detailed picture of the setting. Especially with there being such a big problem with addiction, I feel like accounts that humanize addicts and make others realize how difficult addiction … Continue reading →

This ethnography was heartbreaking and enlightening. I really liked the opening framing about the river, drawing the parallels about how heroin touches all parts of life in this part of New Mexico. On page 12, Garcia describes the “internalization of … Continue reading →

In Angela Garcia’s The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the RIo Grande, the author tells us about the unsettling grip that heroin holds specifically within a hispanic community region along the Rio Grande. What I found particularly interesting is … Continue reading →

I really enjoyed this week’s reading and found it very intriguing – I was captivated immediately and found it easy to get through the reading quickly while still absorbing all of the information. Garcia spends years doing field work in … Continue reading →

Immediately, along with the other ethnographic texts we have read, The Pastoral Clinic caught my attention because of the ways Garcia interacts with her ethnographic methods. Through elaborating on particular narratives within her fieldwork, Garcia engages her arguments with the emic perspective … Continue reading →

In Chapter 5 we are introduced to Adela, a former midwife turned “home detox” provider. This reminded me of our week 8 reading on the state of midwifery in Mexico. The healthcare inequities plaguing midwifery in rural Mexico are also … Continue reading →

After reading Garcia’s ethnography, I’m most interested in her pastoral framework and how it contextualizes heroin use in New Mexico’s Española Valley. Rather than using an isolationist approach that confines personal histories of addiction to an individual’s psychology, the pastoral … Continue reading →

I actually had the pleasure of reading this book for the second time for this class; the first being in a medical anthropology course during my junior year. I compared my notes from both times and found that themes of … Continue reading →

I think the theme that struck me the most was the concept of a patient-prisoner. Garcia states: “Addicts assigned to the drug court system are dually and contradictorily marked; the addict/offender is patient and prisoner. The patient-prisoner experiences the weight … Continue reading →

I personally enjoyed Garcia’s close and personalized ethnography of those in her community and their experiences with drugs – how it affects their lives, what it does to them on a physical and emotional level, and how it intertwines with … Continue reading →

Dr. Garcia’s Pastoral Clinic is a fascinating ethnography surrounding the lives of those who are recovering addicts across different but interconnected fields. “From the clinic to the courthouse,” Dr. Garcia argues that the singularness of of release and rehabilitation is … Continue reading →

The extent of Garcia involvement in her site work truly reflects through her vivid descriptions and makes her writing arguably more emotional than the previous pieces we read. I was personally stuck by the opening story in Chapter 5, which revolved … Continue reading →

Right away, I was captured by Garcia’s ethnographic writing; even with limited descriptions, she manages to create vivid imagery that revealed her connection to the work and even made me feel connected to her work myself. In the introduction, she … Continue reading →

I really enjoyed the reading in which it talked about different drugs and how you in this society. Growing up in my community I was directly not affected by drugs but it was prevalent in my community. Growing up in … Continue reading →

In this week’s ethnography, I am inspired by the focus of the research. Drugs is something really unfamiliar to me because I never had the experience of encountering drugs. The author’s approach of this topic is also quite thourough in … Continue reading →

I really enjoyed this week’s reading as it is both intriguing and relevant, discussing issues that can apply to or can be paralleled by other social situations and misconducts that are present in society. I especially appreciated the author’s discussion … Continue reading →