Death poems for Cindy

When a participant in our anthropological research passes away, how do we honor their life? This essay uses photographs and poetry to remember ‘Cindy’, a sex worker who injected heroin in Tijuana, Mexico, and whose relationship with her non-commercial partner ‘Beto’ challenged pathologized notions of sex workers’ ability to find love and intimacy. This experimental work contributes to anthropological conversations about the ethics and aesthetics of representing marginalized lives, and considers what it means to love and care in contexts of structural violence, social exclusion, and illness. Even in death, our participants remind us of what really matters in the anthropological pursuit: a humanistic passion to understand and appreciate the diversity of life.