Article Commentary: Harm Reduction – any Limits?

Skretting, Astrid

doi:10.1177/145507250702400313

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Lågtröskelverksamheter antas kunna mildra en del av vardagslivets risker, genom att inte vara en del av gatukontexten och där vila eller en stunds samtal gör att besökarens slipper tänka på narkotikarelaterade aktiviteter ett tag (Kappel, Toth, Tegner och Lauridsen 2016;MacNeil och Pauly 2011;McNeil och Small 2014;jfr McNeil, Small, Lampkin, Shannon och Kerr 2014b). Samtidigt uppger personal vid drogkonsumtionsrum att det är en svår miljö att arbeta i, många besökare upplevs vara mentalt instabila, något som har lett till oro för att bli attackerad med använda sprutor (Skretting 2007). En sådan atmosfär borde påverka även besökares upplevelser av verksamheten.…”

Section: Icke-medicinska Betydelser Av Lågtröskelverksamheterunclassified

Konsten att göra (sprut)utbyten: Sprutbytets betydelse i skärningspunkten mellan politik, yrkespraktik och människors vardagsliv

Nordstedt

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The Art of Needle Exchange: The Significance of Needle Exchange Programs at the Intersection of Politics, Professional Practice, and People's Everyday Lives This doctoral thesis discusses how social meanings are constructed in needle exchange programs. For nearly four decades, Sweden has implemented needle exchange programs to prevent the spread of bloodborne viral infections. However, a restrictive drug policy and resistance to harm reduction efforts have led to limitations in access to these programs, both in terms of geography and through an exclusionary regulatory framework. The effectiveness of needle exchange programs in reducing the risk of infection associated with injection-related behaviour is clearly positive. However, there are limited scientific studies on the more socially oriented meanings of needle exchange programs. With needle exchange programs as a physical and social place, the overarching aim of this thesis is to understand how the creation of social meanings of needle exchanges is achieved through time, space, and social interaction, primarily between the program's visitors and its staff. The empirical material primarily consists of 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observations and informal conversations at two needle exchange programs in southern Sweden, as well as in the everyday lives of individuals who visit these programs. Through extensive ethnographic narratives and analyses based on theories of everyday life, resistance, time, and gifts, the thesis demonstrates that needle exchange programs hold multiple meanings created through interactions between visitors and staff. Two concurrent and parallel tracks contribute to understanding what needle exchange programs mean to those who visit them. One track starts with a counterproductive regulatory framework where requirements and rules result in some visitors coming less often than they need to or not at all. The other track involves countless material and relational exchanges that foster positive experiences of the needle exchange program, turning it into a place of social hope and a changed future. One of the thesis's most significant findings concerns the social work that takes place at the needle exchange program in the interactions between visitors and staff. These interactions also occur at the intersection of the norms and hierarchies of the drug world and the Swedish dream of a drug- free society. In the waiting room of the needle exchange program, negotiations are constantly underway to maintain it as a place of hopeful encounters, as opposed to a destructive refuge.

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Section: Icke-medicinska Betydelser Av Lågtröskelverksamheterunclassified