Complex Emergencies
I remember this “death certificate” hitting me quite hard when I first read it back in October. As I study for my complex emergencies exam, I am again reminded of why I am so fascinated, appalled, shocked and motivated by this area of existence . . .
“Died: September 18, 1985, Luíza Alvez da Conceição, female, brown, aged thirty-three, unmarried
Cause of Death: Dehydration, acute malnutrition
Observations: The deceased left behind no living children and no possessions. She was illiterate. She did not vote.”
What kind of life did she live for thirty-three years?
And there’s more . . .
“You gringos,” a Salvadorian peasant told an American visitor, “ are always worried about violence done with machine guns and machetes. But there is another kind of violence that you should be away of, too. I used to work on a hacienda. My job was to take care of the dueño’s dogs. I gave them meat and bowls of milk, food that I couldn’t give my own family. When the dogs were sick, I took them to the veterinarian. When my children were sick, the dueño gave me his sympathy, but no medicine as they died”
“A child died today in the favela. He was two months old. If he had lived he would have gone hungry anyway.” Carolina Maria de Jesus (1962: 108)
Hat tip: Nancy Scheper-Hughes. 1992. Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil, Berkeley: University of California Press
