Tracing the “Event” of Drug Use: “Context” and the Coproduction of a Night Out on MDMA

Dilkes-Frayne, Ella

doi:10.1177/009145091404100308

“…The elaborations of assemblage thinking (Marcus and Saka ) have been present in many areas of scholarship and may address different phenomena of the world (Duff ). The notion of assemblage has been widely applied in alcohol and other drugs (AOD) research to account for complexities of drug use and addiction (Bøhling , Dilkes‐Frayne , Duff , Fitzgerald , Hart , Malins , Moore et al . ).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The elaborations of assemblage thinking (Marcus and Saka 2006) have been present in many areas of scholarship and may address different phenomena of the world (Duff 2016). The notion of assemblage has been widely applied in alcohol and other drugs (AOD) research to account for complexities of drug use and addiction (Bøhling 2015, Dilkes-Frayne 2014, Duff 2014, Fitzgerald 1998, Hart 2015, Malins 2004, Moore et al 2017. These studies refuse to reduce the notion of addiction to a human-centred view in biomedical theories, wherein addiction is considered to be a biological pathology or a maladaptive reaction of a human subject under certain social structures (see Duff 2014: 126-7).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Therapy without a prescription: buprenorphine/naloxone diversion and the therapeutic assemblage in Taiwan

Chen¹

2019

Sociology Health & Illness

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Buprenorphine/naloxone (B/N) therapy is a prescription pharmacotherapy for opioid dependence. For certain health service providers, when B/N escapes supervision and diverts into the hands of people for whom it is unintended, it can pose serious risks even if it may still have therapeutic benefits. The line between therapy and diversion is thus a problematic one. By qualitatively analysing archival review and in‐depth interviews, this study uses the concept of a therapeutic assemblage to understand the relationships among government, knowledge, and professionals that surround the regulation of B/N in Taiwan. The therapeutic assemblage is characterised by the partitioning of administration, the loose regulation of prescription, the exclusion of addiction treatment from National Health Insurance (NHI), and the materiality and technicality of therapies. These elements contribute to the therapeutic assemblage's different territorial modes as reflected in the substance schedules that allow for diversion. This is the first grounded work in Asia that empirically examines and theoretically explains the diversion of B/N from an assemblage perspective. It suggests establishing new associations by incorporating addiction treatment into NHI. Lastly, it addresses the analytic purchase of the assemblage approach in unveiling and problematising unintended outcomes of an intervention.

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“…Those researching within the sociology of drug use have utilised 'the event' predominantly through Bruno Latour (e.g. Demant, 2009;Dilkes-Frayne, 2014;Duff, 2012;Gomart & Hennion, 1999;Race, 2015), and less so, through Gabriel Tarde (Bøhling, 2014;Vargas, 2010), Alfred Whitehead (Race, 2014), and Deleuze (Duff, 2014;Malins, 2004).…”

Section: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The injecting ‘event’: harm reduction beyond the human

Dennis¹

2018

Posthumanism and Public Health

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Since the 1980s, the primary public health response to injecting drug use in the UK has been one of harm reduction. That is, reducing the harms associated with drug use without necessarily reducing consumption itself. Rooted in a post-Enlightenment idea of rationalism, interventions are premised on the rational individual who, given the right means, will choose to avoid harm. This lies in stark contrast to dominant addiction models that pervade popular images of the 'out of control' drug user, or worse, 'junkie'. Whilst harm reduction has undoubtedly had vast successes, including challenging the otherwise pathologising and often stigmatising model of addiction, I argue that it has not gone far enough in addressing aspects of drug use that go beyond 'rational' and 'human' control. Drawing on my doctoral research with people who inject drugs, conducted in London, UK, this paper highlights the role of the injecting 'event', which far from being directed or controlled by a pre-defined individual or 'body' was composed by a fragile assemblage of bodies, human and nonhuman. Furthermore, in line with the 'event's' heterogeneous and precarious make-up, multiple ways of 'becoming' through these events were possible. I look here at these 'becomings' as both stabilising and destabilising ways of being in the world, and argue that we need to pay closer attention to these events and what people are actually in the process of becoming in order to enact more accountable and 'response-able' harm reduction.

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“…Those researching within the sociology of drug use have utilised 'the event' predominantly through Bruno Latour (e.g. Demant, 2009;Dilkes-Frayne, 2014;Duff, 2012;Gomart & Hennion, 1999;Race, 2015), and less so, through Gabriel Tarde (Bøhling, 2014;Vargas, 2010), Alfred Whitehead (Race, 2014), and Deleuze (Duff, 2014;Malins, 2004).…”

Section: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(2015 Where drug events have been traced according to ANT, attention is paid to 'mediation' (e.g. Demant, 2009;Dilkes-Frayne, 2014;Duff, 2012;Race, 2015), and the moments these relational activities occur. This is seen to shift attention from 'who acts' to 'what occurs' (Dilkes-Frayne, 2014;Duff, 2016;Gomart & Hennion, 1999 (Michael & Rosengarten, 2012) move through the event?…”

Section: Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The injecting ‘event’: harm reduction beyond the human

Dennis

¹

2017

Critical Public Health

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Since the 1980s, the primary public health response to injecting drug use in the UK has been one of harm reduction. That is, reducing the harms associated with drug use without necessarily reducing consumption itself. Rooted in a post-Enlightenment idea of rationalism, interventions are premised on the rational individual who, given the right means, will choose to avoid harm. This lies in stark contrast to dominant addiction models that pervade popular images of the 'out of control' drug user, or worse, 'junkie'. Whilst harm reduction has undoubtedly had vast successes, including challenging the otherwise pathologising and often stigmatising model of addiction, I argue that it has not gone far enough in addressing aspects of drug use that go beyond 'rational' and 'human' control. Drawing on my doctoral research with people who inject drugs, conducted in London, UK, this paper highlights the role of the injecting 'event', which far from being directed or controlled by a pre-defined individual or 'body' was composed by a fragile assemblage of bodies, human and nonhuman. Furthermore, in line with the 'event's' heterogeneous and precarious make-up, multiple ways of 'becoming' through these events were possible. I look here at these 'becomings' as both stabilising and destabilising ways of being in the world, and argue that we need to pay closer attention to these events and what people are actually in the process of becoming in order to enact more accountable and 'response-able' harm reduction.

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Tracing the “Event” of Drug Use: “Context” and the Coproduction of a Night Out on MDMA

Cited by 58 publications

References 27 publications

Therapy without a prescription: buprenorphine/naloxone diversion and the therapeutic assemblage in Taiwan

Therapy without a prescription: buprenorphine/naloxone diversion and the therapeutic assemblage in Taiwan

The injecting ‘event’: harm reduction beyond the human

The injecting ‘event’: harm reduction beyond the human

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