A Second Chance: Reenactment and Recovery Narratives in a Peruvian Drug Rehabilitation Center

Abstract

The following article discusses a collaborative, reenactment film made with the residents of a drug rehabilitation center in Iquitos, Peru. In so doing, it raises questions about narratives of recovery from addiction, and the tensions that emerge between these narratives and the often‐ambivalent feelings of the people who tell them. Practices of filmmaking and reenactment generate a collaborative theorization of lived experience—in this case, the multifaceted natures of both addiction and recovery. At the same time, these practices are also attentive to the embodied memories and complex feelings of the film's actors. Further engagement with the filmic materials demonstrates how the film became an active exploration of the ongoing nature of recovery, complicating the therapeutic trajectories of a group of actors struggling to reconcile ambivalent feelings as they attempt to craft new narratives of self.

Narco‐Infrastructures and the Persistence of Illicit Coca in Loreto

“…2014), not to mention the growing public health concern of drug consumption in producing and trafficking regions (Garcia 2015; Núñez Pérez et al. 2019; O'Neill 2014; Silverstein 2021). My point, rather, is to show ways in which various elements of the illicit narcotics industry do not operate independently, but rather are historically tied up in, and generative of, local trajectories of social, economic life, and political life.…”

“…In drawing on these more mundane elements of the drug trafficking industry, it has not been my intention to play down the very real and damaging effects of drugs and drug trafficking. PBC and cocaine production causes deforestation, pollutes waterways, and invites conflicts between trafficking factions, policy and military forces, and insurgent and paramilitary groups all vying for control of the traffic (Bedoya Garland 1999;Lyons 2016;McSweeney et al 2014), not to mention the growing public health concern of drug consumption in producing and trafficking regions (Garcia 2015;Núñez Pérez et al 2019;O'Neill 2014;Silverstein 2021). My point, rather, is to show ways in which various elements of the illicit narcotics industry do not operate independently, but rather are historically tied up in, and generative of, local trajectories of social, economic life, and political life.…”

“…6 One thing that my neighbors, as well as my interlocutors, nearly always noted as new was the visible rise in drug consumption within the city. See Silverstein (2021) for a discussion of this. 7 The struggle for the canon petrolero remains one of the most decisive battles fought between regional political coalitions and the national government.…”

“…66One thing that my neighbors, as well as my interlocutors, nearly always noted as new was the visible rise in drug consumption within the city. See Silverstein (2021) for a discussion of this.…”

Visualizing a Calculus of Recovery: Calibrating Relations in an Opioid Epicenter

“…Participatory visual research methods offer a promising direction for generating a mutual understanding of sensory experiences of social worlds (Franzen and Orr 2016 ; Silverstein 2021 ) and imaginaries (Fast 2017 ; Graham 2016 ; Silverstein 2017 ). Participatory visual methods also suggest strategies for navegating the complex dynamics of representation involved in research with vulnerable populations in order document and explain relations that they encounter and find meaningful (Bukowski and Buetow 2011 ; Fast 2017 ).…”