Buy new:
$34.95$34.95
FREE delivery:
Wednesday, Feb 15
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Buy used: $27.96
Other Sellers on Amazon
& FREE Shipping
86% positive over last 12 months
+ $3.99 shipping
84% positive over last 12 months
& FREE Shipping
91% positive over last 12 months
Usually ships within 4 to 5 days.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.


Life in Debt: Times of Care and Violence in Neoliberal Chile First Edition
Price | New from | Used from |
Enhance your purchase
- ISBN-100520272102
- ISBN-13978-0520272101
- EditionFirst
- PublisherUniversity of California Press
- Publication dateJune 5, 2012
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
- Print length298 pages
Frequently bought together
- +
- +
Customers who bought this item also bought
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Brimming with insights and textures. . . . Han brilliantly, often quite beautifully, fleshes out the intersections between the existential and the economic. . . . This book has much to contribute to the global scholarship on debt, beyond the Chilean and Latin American context.” ― Somatosphere
"In this moving ethnography, Clara Han delivers a devastating and thought-provoking portrait of urban poverty in contemporary Chile." ― American Anthropologist
From the Inside Flap
"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 recreate 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, author of Humanitarian Reason
From the Back Cover
“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 recreate 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, author of Humanitarian Reason
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : University of California Press; First edition (June 5, 2012)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 298 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0520272102
- ISBN-13 : 978-0520272101
- Item Weight : 14.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,015,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #894 in Anthropology (Books)
- #1,827 in General Anthropology
- #4,981 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
About half the book describes the lives of people - largely women - living in a poblacion (a poor area) of Santiago. This is interspersed with background information and (what I assume is) anthropological interpretation. I cannot really comment on the analysis as it uses a technical vocabulary and make references to people I haven't read (for what it's worth, from my uneducated POV, it sometimes states the obvious, sometimes provides insight, and sometimes seems like bull).
The descriptions of life in the poblacion are often harrowing. I live in a rich area of Santiago and have little direct experience of some of the things described (for example, I know no-one that uses pasta base). But where the text does cross my experience it rings completely true. And it is well-observed, with an eye for detail that can sometimes be amusing.
Many of the descriptions included transcribed conversations and direct quotes. These are in English; the translation is very literal, often favouring homonyms over accuracy ("contento" is translated as "content", not "happy"; perhaps in some contexts that would be correct, but there are many more examples). If you speak Spanish then it is easy to "hear" was actually said (in the original language), but if you speak only English then some parts may be misleading or confusing. I am sure Clara Han's Spanish is better than mine (I don't see how someone could write a book like this without being completely fluent) so I wonder if this is deliberate.
One obvious absence is the experience of men. It's unfair to call this a criticism of the current book, which stands as a complete work, but I think that viewpoint could have taught me more.
I hesitate to say that I am enjoying this book, but I am glad to be reading it (slowly; I have not yet finished) and I am thankful that Clara Han took the time to do this work. I strongly recommend it to anyone who wonders what life is like here for the people you meet as nanas and mayordomos. It helps explain current politics and anger. On the other hand, it also makes some attitudes (even) harder to understand... [update: this is addressed, tangentially, later in the book].