ATS1396 Drug Cultures
Question:
Find an anthropology research article about drugs that was published between 2000 and 2010 and create a structured annotated bibliography.
Answer:
Agar, M. (2002). How the drug field turned my beard grey. International Journal of Drug Policy, 13(4), 249-258.
This particular article deals with an ethnographic study of drug usage in the United States of America over a period of thirty five years, illustrating the gradual change of general perceptions about drug addicts in the country. Agar says that there used to be a time when drug addicts were synonymized with consumers of heroin and were looked down upon as social deviants. The issue was considered as a taboo and naturally any constructive effort to reform the problem was not given much importance. However, with the passage of time, the approach towards the issue changed for the better. The detailed and deep insight that it has provided shall provide a background towards future formulation of drug policies, which shall account for the strength of the paper. On the flip side, the lack of clarity in the language and the point which the scholar wants to convey is its weakness. The lacuna of the paper lies in the fact that it has provided information only about heroin consumers with no reference about users of other variety of drugs. Also, there is no mention of the factor that sets the consumers of heroin apart and special from consumers of other variety of drugs.
Bourgois, P. (2002). Anthropology and epidemiology on drugs: the challenges of cross-methodological and theoretical dialogue. International Journal of Drug Policy, 13(4), 259-269.
This article focuses on the transmission of HIV Virus by means of using the same piece of needle for injecting drugs by multiple persons. The uniqueness of this article lies in the fact that it has tried to analyse the issue of drug intake from biological, social and political perspective, which does not make the research one-sided. The usage of cross methodological dialogue technique in conducting the research adds a sense of vibrancy to the article. The inclusion of gender as a unit of enquiry adds the insight that issue of consumption of drugs is not a homogenous and monolithic phenomenon. A mention of the specificities of users of different varieties of drugs without limiting the enquiry to just the consumption of one kind of drugs can be found in the article. These accounts for the strengths of the article. With regard to its weaknesses, it has tended to digress from thesis statement thereby ending up treating it tangentially and elaborating on issues which find no mention in the abstract or in the research question. The literature lacking any objectivity and is replete with emotive elements which makes the paper a sort of subjective analysis of the issue without the potentiality of the conclusion to be applied in other situations.
Maher, L. (2002). Don’t leave us this way: ethnography and injecting drug use in the age of AIDS. International journal of drug policy, 13(4), 311-325.
The central theme of this article is illustrating an account of the level of vulnerability of the drug users who incur HIV AIDS in the process of consuming drugs. The style and approach undertaken by the scholar is narrative which is very evident in the amount of empathy that has been shown to present the unfiltered views of the respondants. That there has been no efforts to adulterate the accounts provided by the interviewees used in the research process is clear by the minute details provided in the article. The study has been extensively conducted over three continents which increases the factor of objectivity of the research. An analysis of the negative aspects of the policy making activities at the level of the state and the failure of reform movements to eradicate the problem renders a sense of completeness to the project. These factors make the research a strong one. Its weakness lies in the fact it has tended to deal more about HIV AIDS, the mode of transmission, the health issues related to it, and very less about the issue of drug use. The literature lacks any innovative input about the connection between drug usage and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. It is a repetition of the same narration of experiences of individuals who have been drug addicts and are wrought with HIV AIDS.
Moore, D. (2002). Ethnography and the Australian drug field: emaciation, appropriation and multidisciplinary myopia. International Journal of Drug Policy, 13(4), 271-284.
The departure from the usual and the common genres in the field of anthropological studies related to substance abuse is very clearly visible in the article. The chosen country for conducting the analysis, Australia, is infamous for alcoholism. The scholar has presented a different insight to the issue by shifting focus to the issue of drugs in the country which usually goes unreported. Naturally, this adds a touch of novelty to the study. The study covers social, cultural, political and economic underpinnings of the population engaged in intake of drugs in Australia. An analysis of the demographic structure of drug addicts of the country can also be found, which saves the research project from just being an amalgamation of facts collected without any analysis at all. These factors account for the strength of the study. However, the literature seemed to focus only on the urban population which is engaged in drug, which makes the article one sided, accounting for the shortcoming of the study. It could have given equal emphasis on the rural population of Australia engaged in drug addiction, then the comparative aspect of the paper could have been more prominent and the generalizing tendency could have been diluted.
Power, R. (2002). The application of ethnography, with reference to harm reduction in Sverdlovsk Russia. International Journal of Drug Policy, 13(4), 327-331.
The central theme of this article is to bring about the potency of ethnographic studies to effect a change in the way emancipation programmes are conducted for the benefit of the people suffering from the evils of drug abuse in Russia specifically. The emphasis is thus on resorting to a constructive purpose that shall be beneficial for the society by means of ethnography. Hence the stress has been primarily on the methodological aspect of the research for inferring a quantitative and objective data regarding the state of drug consumers in Russia, and use that to draw attention of the policy makers. A comparison with the previously conducted researches can also be found in the article which aids to the central purpose. Though these make the piece of research a strong one, the over emphasis on methodological aspect in the article somehow disrupts any insight on the lives of the people. The narrative aspect tends to weigh less than the quantitative aspect which renders the article unbalanced. This makes the article weak as an anthropological enquiry, and more of a survey research.
Bibliography
Agar, M. (2002). How the drug field turned my beard grey. International Journal of Drug Policy, 13(4), 249-258.
Bourgois, P. (2002). Anthropology and epidemiology on drugs: the challenges of cross-methodological and theoretical dialogue. International Journal of Drug Policy, 13(4), 259-269.
Maher, L. (2002). Don’t leave us this way: ethnography and injecting drug use in the age of AIDS. International journal of drug policy, 13(4), 311-325.
Moore, D. (2002). Ethnography and the Australian drug field: emaciation, appropriation and multidisciplinary myopia. International Journal of Drug Policy, 13(4), 271-284.
Power, R. (2002). The application of ethnography, with reference to harm reduction in Sverdlovsk Russia. International Journal of Drug Policy, 13(4), 327-331.
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