Crime and Punishment, Body and Spirit:

war in the intimacy of a family

Abstract

This article examines how torture and death intertwine in family and neighborhood relationships in a lasting way. Using a case study, the experience of a mother whose daughter worked for the drug trade, was tortured by military police, threatened with death by local drug dealers and imprisoned for nine months, we see how the war on drugs infiltrates modes of existence, the ways in which people relate to one another, and the very formation of the person as subject.