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Advance Praise for Life in Debt
“Life in Debt will become, I predict, one of the classic ethnographies in the anthropological study of state violence, community responses, and the moral life of the global poor. Relating economic and political debt, financial and psychological depression, and caregiving by ordinary people and by social institutions, Clara Han maps our brave new world just about as illuminatingly as it has been done. A remarkable achievement.”
—Arthur Kleinman, Harvard University
“In this highly sophisticated take on the ironies of neoliberal social reforms, the corporate sector, consumer culture, and chronic underemployment, nothing can be read literally. Han transforms underclass urban ethnography in Latin America by bringing readers directly into the intimate flow of relationships, experiences, and emotions in family life on the margins of Santiago, Chile.”
—Kay Warren, Director, Pembroke Center, Brown University
“People-centered, movingly written, and analytically probing, Life in Debt deals with both the human costs and the changing structures of power driven by contemporary dynamics of neoliberalism. Combining a deep and nuanced understanding of Chile's history with a longitudinal and heart-wrenching field-based knowledge of the everyday travails of the urban poor, Clara Han has crafted an exceptional analysis of human transformations in the face of political violence and economic insecurity.”
—João Biehl, author of Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment
“During ten years, Clara Han has gathered fragments of biographies and moments of lives to re-create the experience of Chileans after Pinochet's dictatorship. Her vivid ethnography plunges into the moral economy of a society entangled between memory and pardon, revealing the ethical work undertaken by those who accept the present without disclaiming the past.”
—Didier Fassin, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton,
New Jersey, and author of Humanitarian Reason
Life in Debt
Times of Care and Violence
in Neoliberal Chile
Clara Han
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley • Los Angeles • London
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2012 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Han, Clara, 1975–
Life in debt : times of care and violence in neoliberal Chile / Clara Han.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-27209-5 (cloth : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-520-27210-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Chile—Social policy—21st century. 2. Chile—Economic policy—21st century. 3. Political violence—Chile. 4. Neoliberalism—Social aspects—Chile. I. Title.
HN293.5.H36 2012
320.60983—dc23
2012001902
Manufactured in the United States of America
12 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on 50-pound Enterprise, a 30% post-consumer-waste, recycled, deinked fiber that is processed chlorine-free. It is acid-free and meets all ANSI/NISO (z 39.48) requirements.
For Mom and Dad
For Mike, Alyse, Andy
For Paty
For Maarten
Contents
3. Torture, Love, and the Everyday
6. Life and Death, Care and Neglect
Conclusion: Relations and Time
Acknowledgments
Writing this book has been a process of growth. I am deeply thankful to friends and families in La Pincoya for inviting me into their lives, for their hospitality, friendship, and wisdom. Helping me understand your commitments, allowing me to accompany you in daily life, and challenging me to be a better person in the registers of my everyday life, you gave me friendship and warmth that not only led to insights for this book but also were formative for my being. I hope the writing adequately evokes the deep and meaningful commitments in this
