Paper short abstract:

This presentation is a photo-ethnographic exploration of a temporary dwelling. Photographic practice explored patterns of daily life for people living with opioid addiction, as well as the objects and materials through which they created a sense of home and place in public spaces.

Paper long abstract:

This proposed presentation is a photo-ethnographic exploration of a temporary dwelling. It is both an essay, and also a diary, of an attempt to understand how public spaces are made intimate and familiar in the context of addiction and its resultant precarities. The space is a small, covered ledge underneath a bridge that crosses the Little Miami River as it runs through the downtown of Dayton, Ohio, an epicenter of industrial decline and opioid misuse. Digital photography is used as a method and practice for studying the space and attempting a more thorough ethnography of local people living with opioid addiction, a group that has formed the core of a broader public health research project undertaken by the author for the past three years. In this manner, this photographic project is an attempt to understand the utilization of common spaces as a means of complementing more standard forms of anthropological and public health research into the practices and experiences of people who use drugs. Longitudinal photographic practice lent new insights into the patterns of daily life for people living with opioid addiction, as well as the objects and materials through which they created a sense of home and place in public spaces.