“Why can't they put us to sleep if we are suffering?”: La Nada and the desire for euthanasia among institutionalized older adults in Peru

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.