The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the Rio Grande

Angela Garcia is a researcher and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. Her research focuses on how historical and institutional systems and processes create frameworks for violence. Garcia grew up in New Mexico, left at age 17, and returned in 2004 to conduct a study of heroin addiction in the Española Valley. The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along the Rio Grande, published in 2010, was Garcia’s first book. Garcia admits that when she was away from New Mexico, she described an idealized version of the land to others, leaving out the pain and suffering of many of its citizens. Her return explores the complexities of drug addiction and its ties to community, culture, and loss.

In 2024, Garcia published The Way that Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico’s City’s Anexos. In this work, Garcia critically examines rehabilitation centers called anexos and the incorporation of violence into therapy offered by these centers. Garcia has received many awards for her research. In 2023, she won the Faculty Award for Educational Leadership in Doctoral Education by the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education (GADE) in Social Work.