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Why is Anthropology a valuable discipline for the study of drugs and society?

Understanding Drugs and and Society

  • Drugs can be categorised as a substance which alters ones physiological state.
  • The intention behind drugs often differs cross-culturally, and western assigned beliefs regulalry take precedence across academic schloraship within the study of drugs. (Rhodes et al, 2012)
  • To build a coherent understaning behind drug use one must examine the materiality of the substance and its consumption in both medical and cultural contexts.
  • The implementation of anthropological methods within the study of drugs will create a more cohesive and well informed area of expertise.

Understanding drugs and society

Kozyr, Eugenia. “Pill Photo.” UnSplash, 7 June 2021, unsplash.com/photos/cwsLxa8EMFU. Accessed 14 Nov. 2022.

Critical Approaches

  • People have attributed meaning to substances throughout human history.
  • With the influx of illicit drug use in the 20th Century, early US anthropologists invested an interest in the drug-user population (Hunt and Barker, 2001).
  • Anthropologists were among the first to consider the cultural setting within drug use, and draw attention to the importance behind the sociality of drug consumption (Preble and Casey, 1969; Garcia, 2010).
  • With drug research growingnand recent amendments to drug laws, such as the legalisation Cannabis in many US states, undestaning the behaviours behind drug users is imperative.
  • Anthropological methods such as fieldwork and participant observation is now more crucial in the stidy of drugs and their impact on society (Geest et al,1996; Rhodes, 2012).

Critical

approaches

Vasques, Lucas. “Man Sight on White Microscope .” UnSplash, 20 Nov. 2017, unsplash.com/photos/9vnACvX2748.

Advantages and Limitations

Advantages and Limitations

Advantages

  • Anthropology provides a closer view on the socio-dynamic aspect of drug consumption (Hardon,2017).
  • The examination of cross-cultural drug practices and rituals creates a more cohesive, well-rounded perspective on drug use, opposed to the overcasted, often predujuice perspective of illicit drug users in the Global North.
  • Anthropologists humanise drug users instead of alienating them, which provides support to those wishing to recover from drug addiction and abuse.

Limitations

  • There is often a desire within the anthropological field to solely examine cultures very different from our own, leading to a lack of research in pharmacological drugs (Geest, 1996)
  • Anthropologists have been criticised for bein overly concerned with the cultural process behind drug consumption, and neglecting the medical and pyschiological apects of drug use.
  • "Anthropologists tend to minimise the seriousness of health problems in the tribal and village cultures under discussion" (Room 1984:170)

Schmetz, Florian. “Yes No Photo.” UnSplash, 25 Apr. 2021,unsplash.com/photosLPckxbrqE5w.

The Future of Anthropology and Drugs and Society

The

Future of

Anthropology and

Drugs and Society

  • This presentation argues that anthropology is an incredibly valuable discipline to be involved in the study of drugs ans society, and should continue to explore the topic with attentive detail to the sociality and materiality behind substance use.
  • While the limitations provided make valid arguments, it is only applicable to a small number of current, and I am sure future, academic work.
  • Anthropologists should work alongside medical professionals in order to further our understanding behind drugs and their infulence and across a wide range of societies.

Grun, Gras. “Man Smoking.” UnSplash, 8 May 2019, unsplash.com/photos/vkgmEzwWfG4.

Bibliography

Biblography

Garcia, Angela. The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along the Rio Grande. United Kingdom, University of California Press, 2010.

Geest, Sjaak van der, Susan Reynolds Whyte, and Anita Hardon. "The anthropology of pharmaceuticals: a biographical approach." Annual review of anthropology 25.1 1996: pp. 153-178.

Hardon, Anita, and Emilia Sanabria. “Fluid Drugs: Revisiting the Anthropology of Pharmaceuticals.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 46, no. 1, 2017, pp. 117–132., doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041539.

Hunt, Geoffrey, and Judith C Barker. “Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Alcohol and Drug Research:” Social Science & Medicine, vol. 53, no. 2, 2001, pp. 165–188., doi:10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00329-4.

Preble, Edward, and John J. Casey. “Taking Care of Business—the Heroin User's Life on the Street.” International Journal of the Addictions, vol. 4, no. 1, 1969, pp. 1–24., doi:10.3109/10826086909061998.

Rhodes, Tim, et al. "Structural violence and structural vulnerability within the risk environment: theoretical and methodological perspectives for a social epidemiology of HIV risk among injection drug users and sex workers." Rethinking social epidemiology. Springer, Dordrecht, 2012. pp. 205-230.

Room, R. "Alcohol and ethnography: A case of problem deflation?". Current Anthropology, 1984, pp.169–191

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