VITA
VITALife in a Zone of Social Abandonment
João Biehl
Photographs by Torben Eskerod
Updated with a New Afterword
and Photo Essay
University of California Press
BerkeleyLos AngelesLondon
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2005, 2013 by The Regents of the University of California
ISBN 978-0-520-27295-8
eISBN 9780520951464
The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier edition of this book as follows:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Biehl, João Guilherme.
Vita : life in a zone of social abandonment / João Biehl ; photographs by Torben Eskerod.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-24278-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Vita (Asylum : Porto Alegre, Brazil)2. Institutional care—Brazil—Porto Alegre.3. Marginality, Social—Brazil—Porto Alegre.I. Title.
HV63.B6B542005
362’.0425’09815—dc22
2005041745
Manufactured in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 2002) (Permanence of Paper).
For Adriana and Andre
Contents
Introduction: “Dead alive, dead outside, alive inside”
PART ONE. VITA
A Zone of Social Abandonment
Brazil
Citizenship
PART TWO. CATARINA AND THE ALPHABET
Life of the Mind
Society of Bodies
Inequality
Ex-Human
The House and the Animal
“Love is the illusion of the abandoned”
Social Psychosis
An Illness of Time
God, Sex, and Agency
PART THREE. THE MEDICAL ARCHIVE
Public Psychiatry
Her Life as a Typical Patient
Democratization and the Right to Health
Economic Change and Mental Suffering
Medical Science
End of a Life
Voices
Care and Exclusion
Migration and Model Policies
Women, Poverty, and Social Death
“I am like this because of life”
The Sense of Symptoms
Pharmaceutical Being
PART FOUR. THE FAMILY
Ties
Ataxia
Her House
Brothers
Children, In-Laws, and the Ex-Husband
Adoptive Parents
“To want my body as a medication, my body”
Everyday Violence
PART FIVE. BIOLOGY AND ETHICS
Pain
Human Rights
Value Systems
Gene Expression and Social Abandonment
Family Tree
A Genetic Population
A Lost Chance
PART SIX. THE DICTIONARY
“Underneath was this, which I do not attempt to name”
Book I
Book II
Book III
Book IV
Book V
Book VI
Book VII
Book VIII
Book IX
Book X
Book XI
Book XII
Book XIII
