About

Angela Garcia is an anthropologist and author whose work focuses on drug addiction, violence, inequality, caregiving, medicine, and family life in the US and Mexico.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Pedagogy
• Psychology
• Mathematics education
• Computer science

Selected publications

• 509. INVOLVEMENT OF THE GUT-BRAIN AXIS IN FOOD ADDICTION

  The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025-08-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Background Food addiction is characterized by a loss of behavioral control over food intake and is associated with obesity and eating disorders. This alteration of eating control modifies gut microbiota composition. However, the mechanisms underlying this behavioral disorder are largely unknown. Aims & Objectives We aimed to investigate the changes in miRNA expression and gut microbiota promoted by food addiction in male and female animals and humans and their involvement in the mechanisms underlying the behavioral hallmarks of this disorder. Method We used the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) 2.0 criteria to classify extreme food addiction in mouse and human subpopulations to identify miRNA expression and gut microbiota signatures associated with vulnerability to this disorder, as well as the relationships between these epigenetic and gut microbiota changes. Results Male and female mice present several important differences in the behavioral manifestations of food addiction, which parallels the the differential manifestations of food addiction in men and women. Close similarities in miRNA signatures in the medial prefrontal cortex of our animal cohort and circulating miRNA levels in our human cohort were revealed. In addition, both animal and human cohorts showed similarities in the gut microbiota signatures linked to food addiction. Several miRNAs were revealed of potential interest in the development of this disorder. Indeed, tough decoy inhibition of miRNA-29c-3p and miRNA-665-3p enhanced food addiction vulnerability revealing their potential role as protective factors with regard to food addiction. The gut microbiota signatures suggested possible non-beneficial effects of bacteria belonging to the Proteobacteria phylum and potential protective effects of Actinobacteria against the development of food addiction in both cohorts of humans and mice. A decreased relative abundance of the species Blautia wexlerae was observed in addicted humans and of Blautia genus in addicted mice. Administration of the non-digestible carbohydrates, lactulose and rhamnose, known to favour Blautia growth, led to increased relative abundance of Blautia in mice faeces in parallel with dramatic improvements in food addiction. A similar improvement was revealed after oral administration of Blautia wexlerae as a beneficial microbe (see Figure). Close relationships were found in mice between the levels of miR-29c-3p in the medial prefrontal cortex and the abundance of Blautia in faeces. Discussion & Conclusions Male and female mice and humans present differential behavioral manifestations of food addiction. The elucidation of the involvement of these epigenetic and gut-brain mechanisms may lead to advances toward identifying innovative biomarkers and possible future interventions for food addiction and related eating disorders. The understanding of the crosstalk between these epigenetic and gut microbiota changes may lead to the identification of specific mechanisms linking the changes in gut microbiota and the development of food addiction.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The confessional community

  American Ethnologist · 2023-09-29 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In the past two decades, drug‐treatment centers called anexos (annexes) have proliferated throughout Mexico. Run and attended by the working poor, anexos ’ therapeutic practices blend criminal violence and religious ritual, and they are widely condemned as abusive and unethical. Based on several years of ethnographic research in Mexico City, this article situates anexos within a larger historical frame and examines how they conjure and rework contemporary forms of affliction through a novel form of confessional practice. It shows how confession simultaneously reproduces pervasive images of violence while also disclosing projects of communitarian survival that are ethically affirmative. In doing so, this article demonstrates that anexos ’ confessional practices constitute an aesthetics and politics of recovery that calls for a rethinking of criminal, religious, and therapeutic domains.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 31. Regeneration: Love, Drugs, and the Remaking of Hispano Inheritance

  New York University Press eBooks · 2021-08-10

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter explores how Hispano families in northern New Mexico have reworked the traditional application of inheritance, referring to property passed down the generations, to conceive of heroin addiction as “inherited.” It shows how this emerging formation of inheritance is shaped by, and speaks to, past configurations of property and belonging. It also reflects on intergenerational addiction as a modality of connection and continuity, but one that is entangled with experiences of cultural dispossession and loss.

  PublisherDOI

• Frontmatter

  Fordham University Press eBooks · 2021-06-15

  book-chapterOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• ONE. THE ELEGIAC ADDICT

  2020-10-06

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Fragments of Relatedness: Writing, Archiving, and the Vicissitudes of Kinship

  Ethnos · 2019-07-25 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This article considers an archive of letters written by three generations of female kin as offering a form for thinking about the nature of kin relations. It tells the story of how the archive came into being, and examines the ways writing and archiving makes visible the shifting relations that constitute kinship. Highlighting the narrative acts of selected letters, it grapples with the failure of things being properly ‘passed on’ within the web of kinship, as well as the potential that this failure generates.

  PublisherDOI

• Treating Toxic Stress in Immigrant Children.

  Communique · 2018-05-01 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Heaven

  2017-11-10 · 5 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Rainy Season

  Social Text · 2017-03-01 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Based on ethnographic research and critical reflection on Carlos Reygadas’s film Post Tenebras Lux, this article explores the texture and temporality of crisis and endurance in Mexico. Specifically, it traces the transformation of one of Mexico City’s ubiquitous anexos (annexes), which names coercive drug treatment centers run by and for the informal working poor. In putting the ethnography of an anexo in dialogue with Reygadas’s film, this article develops a picture of precarious sociality in contemporary Mexico, one shaped by neoliberal reform and drug-related violence. Finally, it contemplates how the film and the anexo’s resonant “difficulty” upset sense and meaning, thereby suggesting new ways of attending to life within broader durations of politics and history.

  PublisherDOI

• The Blue Years: An Ethnography of a Prison Archive

  Cultural Anthropology · 2016-11-06 · 40 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article is an ethnographic account of an archive of prison letters written by three generations of female kin. Based on long-term ethnographic research in rural New Mexico, it describes the context in which the letters were written, as well as the desires, preoccupations, and practices that transformed them into an archive. I have placed a particular focus on how dislocation and connection manifest in the letters and shape the kinds of narratives the archive tells. Themes of isolation, loss, and memory are explored within the wider context of colonial history and the acceleration of the carceral state. This article seeks to integrate these registers analytically, while elucidating the role of archiving for a subject’s present life.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Nicole Mirra

  33 shared

• Ernest Morrell

  19 shared

• Robyn Seglem

  12 shared

• Jennifer S. Dail

  6 shared

• Shelbie Witte

  6 shared

• Jeremiah Kalir

  Indiana University Bloomington

  6 shared

• Thomas M. Philip

  University of California, Berkeley

  6 shared

• Emma Gargroetzi

  The University of Texas at Austin

  5 shared

Awards & honors

• The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along The R…