Mobilising a counterhegemonic idea: Empathy, evidence, and experience in the campaign for a Supervised Drug Injecting Facility (SIF) in Dublin, Ireland

Abstract

Using the case of the campaign to establish a Supervised Injecting Facility (SIF) for people who use illicit drugs in Dublin, Ireland, this paper makes three related contributions to contemporary literatures. First, by detailing the history of the campaign and paying particular attention to the ways it was influenced by learning from models elsewhere in the world, the paper adds a spatial perspective to research on the intersections of public health and politics. Second, the paper addresses the policy mobilities literature's minimal engagement with the role of counterhegemonic ideas and national states in shaping inter‐local policy circulations. It provides detailed empirical analysis of the influence of counterhegemonic ideas and how activists reference those ideas through appeals to empathy, expert evidence, and experience as they build coalitions to influence formal state institutions, including the legal system and the national government. This discussion supports a call for engagement between policy mobilities and counterhegemonic social movement literatures. Third, the paper addresses ongoing discussions of ‘failure’ in policy‐making by arguing for a critical, contextual approach to the spatialities and temporalities of attempts to change entrenched policy and regulatory models. The case study is based on one author's direct involvement in the campaign for a SIF and on semi‐structured research interviews with 12 key actors conducted since 2015. The research also involved an analysis of relevant documentary materials spanning the period 2012–2021 and both authors' participation in a drug policy forum in Dublin in January 2017, involving local and international actors.

Policy mobilities, ‘informational infrastructures’ and the ‘digital turn’: Towards a research agenda

“…This includes encouraging, facilitating, sharing, and translating expertise and knowledge, as part of what has been argued to constitute ‘global urban governance’ (Acuto, 2018, 2020). In the case of Dublin, McCann and Duffin (2023, p. 89) highlight the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, a European Union agency that identifies best practices from national initiatives, tracking longitudinal and emerging trends in drug use. Montero (2018, p. 766), in his study of how Bogotá’s Ciclovía and produced policy change in San Francisco distinguishes between the affective capacities of different types of digital and media materials.…”

“…Geographers and planners have been to its fore, joined by anthropologists, criminologists, educationalists, planners, political scientists and sociologists, using policy mobilities to study a number of areas of public policy. These include the following: Crime (Laing et al., 2022; Newburn et al., 2018); Creativity (Peck, 2011; Prince, 2010, 2012, 2017); Drug and harm reduction (Baker et al., 2020; Baker & McCann, 2020; McCann, 2008, 2011; McCann & Duffin, 2023; Temenos, 2017, 2023); Economic development (Cook, 2008; González, 2011; Ward K, 2006, 2007); Education (Ball, 2016; Cohen, 2017; Gulson et al., 2017; Lewis, 2021; McKenzie, 2017; Pitton & McKenzie, 2022); Finance (Baker et al., 2016; Ward K, 2018a, 2018b) Smart and sustainable cities (Chang, 2017; Côté‐Roy & Moser, 2023; Crivello, 2015; Rapoport & Hult, 2017; Söderström et al., 2021); Social welfare (Peck & Theodore, 2010, 2015; Theodore & Peck, 2000); Transport (Montero, 2017; Wood, 2014a, 2014b); …”

“…Drug and harm reduction (Baker et al., 2020; Baker & McCann, 2020; McCann, 2008, 2011; McCann & Duffin, 2023; Temenos, 2017, 2023);…”