Zones of social abandonment are emerging everywhere in Brazil’s big cities—places like Vita, where the unwanted, the mentally ill, the sick, and the homeless are left to die. This haunting, unforgettable story centers on a young woman named Catarina, increasingly paralyzed and said to be mad, living out her time at Vita. Anthropologist João Biehl leads a detective-like journey to know Catarina; to unravel the cryptic, poetic words that are part of the ‘dictionary’ she is compiling...
Table of Content
Introduction: ‘Dead Alive, Dead Outside, Alive Inside’
PART ONE. VITA
A Zone of Social Abandonment
Brazil
Citizenship
PART TWO. CATARINA AND THE ALPHABET
The ...
About the author
João Biehl is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. His website is www.joaobiehl.net. Torben Eskerod is an artist and works as a freelance photogr...