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- Convenors:
-
Vibeke Asmussen Frank
(Århus University)
Axel Klein (University of Swansea)
Steffen Jöhncke (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)
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- Chair:
-
Vibeke Asmussen Frank
(Århus University)
- Format:
- Workshops
- Location:
- 0.19
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Ljubljana
Short Abstract:
The workshop takes a starting point in the Anthropology of Policy as put forward by Shore and Wright (1997) and aims at exploring new ways of studying the politics and practices of psychoactive drugs. The purpose is to discuss how anthropology can help diversify the study of drug use and drug policy.
Long Abstract:
Ethnographic studies of the uses and the users of psychoactive drugs have generally shown the complexity of the meanings of drugs across time and space. In this manner, ethnography has contributed to the problematisation of beliefs and policies that rely on simplistic notions of drugs and drug users. But by focusing primarily on the users, ethnography has also - perhaps inadvertently - contributed to the idea that drug users are indeed the ethnographic Others that we need to study, rather than, for instance, the policy-makers, the police, prison staff, prevention workers, staff of treatment institutions, or some of all the other groups of people involved in the formulation and implementation of drug policies.
In this workshop we take a starting point in the Anthropology of Policy as put forward by Shore and Wright (1997) and invite all anthropologists - academic or applied - who are involved in the study of or work with drugs and drug policies to join us in order to explore issues pertinent for the development of an anthropology of drug policy. Among the issues we suggest be considered are the impact of the drugs' illegality on users and on societies, the development and practice of harm reduction policies, the ethnographic study of treatment facilities, and the uneven development of drug policies internationally (heroin used in treatment, general testing schemes of employees and school children). Where is drug policy on a global scale going, and how may anthropology help explore it?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 August, 2008, -Paper short abstract:
As a concept and an approach, 'treatmentality' is inspired by the Foucauldian theory of 'governmentality'. This paper suggests and explores 'treatmentality' as applied to drug use treatment policy and practice in Denmark, particularly in the field of methadone treatment.
Paper long abstract:
Based on a number of applied anthropological studies of methadone treatment and related services to drug users in Denmark, this paper suggests that the idea and practice of 'treatment' itself needs ethnographic exploration as a particular cultural construction of the relationship between drug users and the rest of (the welfare) society. In our everyday thinking, the need for and practice of treatment is usually regarded as obvious and at least intentionally beneficial, something that on the basis of reason or morality can not and should not be questioned. However, this paper argues that treatment first of all serves to establish a particular relationship in which the solution (treatment) defines the problem (drug use and drug users' lives and activities) in culturally and politically expedient ways. Drawing on the theory of 'governmentality' from Michel Foucault, this paper argues that a crucial component in the functioning of treatment is the creation and targetting of drug users as a particular and identifiable section of the population, and that researchers - anthropologists included - assist in this process.
Paper short abstract:
Outline for new Anthropology of Drugs. This paper argues that the conceptual approaches rooted in the study of the social, the research methodology with emphasis on inter-subjectivity, small groups analysed within a wider context, and the construction of meaning equip anthropologists for a dispassionate analysis of contested social issues.
Paper long abstract:
An anthropology of drugs takes the consumption aspect as a starting point, how consumers construct their identity, derive meaning from the act of consumption, and express their relationship with society in the process of consuming drugs.
Drug use has spread widely through the different strata of the so-called subcultures of young people, is embedded in the behaviour of deviant groups, both predictor and consequence of offending and anti-social behaviour, a ritual of rebellion, a rite of passage and an increasingly mainstreamed part of ordinary pleasures seeking behaviour.
Drug taking remains highly controversial, is imbued with moral uncertainty, is highly politicised, but at the same time poorly defined. Popular definitions tend to derive from the legal status of psychoactive substances, which has in effect left the definition to lawmakers.
The weak empirical foundations for drug policy are in part a product of the multifaceted character of the issue. Anthropology has an essential role to play as critical friend of ongoing activities due to methodological advantages
(i) the relative method -
(ii) concerns with the construction meaning by informants
(iii) locating behaviour within wider contexts and analysing relationships
(iv) detailed studies of small communities with ethnographic observations on actual patterns of use
(v) anthropology can humanise marginalised groups and despised practices
European anthropology has to outline an area for systematic exploration including
• field studies of cultures of drug use across Europe
• the impact of drug control on citizens and the state - what are the successes and failures of drug control
Paper short abstract:
Case management has become a recommended treatment offer in much contemporary drug treatment. This paper shows how case management presents staff members in an out patient clinic for dual diagnosis with the possibility to follow the patients very close and give staff a certain type of control over patients’ lives.
Paper long abstract:
Within the drug treatment and research environment in Denmark the issue of what is treatment has been intensively debated throughout the last decade. This has resulted in several reports recommending how treatment of drug use should be organised. One of the recommendations is that people in treatment should have a case manager. A Campbell review has also recently pointed out that case management is effective in bringing people within the treatment system. It seems that case management is becoming one of the cornerstones in drug treatment in the first part of the twenty first century.
In this paper I will present an ongoing research project in an out patient clinic for people with a dual diagnosis (people with both a psychiatric disorder and a drug use). One of the treatment principles in this clinic is intensive case management (ratio: 1 case manager has 5 to 6 patients). I will focus on the benefits of case management as experienced by the staff. Case management seems to produce a very close relation to the patients that the staff uses to facilitate psychiatric treatment, to avoid and contain aggressive behaviour on part of the patients, to create a standing point in a moral difficult environment there patients talk and live with violence, prostitution and criminality, and last but not least where case management give a possibility for control in a treatment setting where former control through rules of methadone dispensing have been abandoned with reference to the principles of harm reduction.
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses some characteristics of an anthropology of drug policy. Focus is on how an anthropology of drug policy differ in perspective from drug policy studies in general, and, therefore, in the kind of knowledge that an anthropology of drug policy produces.
Paper long abstract:
Drug policy studies forms part of for example criminological research or policy studies in general. These different knowledge traditions also colour the perspective and methodological aspects of drug policy studies: drug policy research is often reduced to control policy focusing mainly on legislation and the more formal aspects of drug control; and, it is mainly quantitative studies based on documentary evidence, such as numbers of seizures, prosecutions, sentencing, and arrests in relation to drug offences, as well as police activity in relation to drugs. The present paper takes a point of departure in the perspective of both recent and classic drug policy studies, in order to discuss how an anthropology of drug policy can contribute and expand this field of study. In general, the argument will be that an anthropology of drug policy covers drug policy in the broadest sense, including both the formal aspects of legislation and how it is constructed, as well as how legislation is implemented in practice, e.g. how policing is conducted, treatment is formed, prevention is carried out, etc. Examples from a study of drug treatment in Danish prisons and a study of cannabis policy in Denmark forms the empirical examples of discussing how an anthropology of drug policy can contribute with new insights and new perspectives to the field of drug policy studies in general.