"Why can't they put us to sleep if we are suffering?": La Nada and the desire for euthanasia among institutionalized...

In this article, I examine how institutionalized older adults in Peru articulate suffering through the idiom of la nada-"nothingness"-and how this shapes desires for euthanasia. Moving from close ethnography of bodies in space and time to structural and ethical discourses on euthanasia, I argue that calls for euthanasia arise not only from biomedical suffering or terminal illness, but also from socially produced experiences of relational erosion, confinement, and moral invisibility. Residents' refrain-"no tengo nada"-signals not only material lack but the collapse of reciprocal ties, autonomy, and recognition. Euthanasia thus becomes a moral claim that life cannot be defined by biological survival, absent dignity and belonging. The article challenges narrow bioethical frameworks and shows how end-of-life suffering is constituted through structural abandonment and social death, reframing the wish for euthanasia as a protest against life reduced to mere endurance without dignity.