Drug places and spaces of problematisation: the melancholy case of a Hungarian needle exchange programme
ISSN: 1745-9265
Article publication date: 19 June 2021
Issue publication date: 8 September 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore multiple problematisation processes through a former needle exchange programme run by Kék Pont (a non-governmental organisation) in the 8th district of Budapest. By presenting a collage of ethnographic stories, this paper attempts to preserve tacit knowledge associated with the programme and thereby keep its office alive as a “drug place”, the operation of which was made impossible in 2014.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the insights of Foucauldian governmentality studies and actor-network theory, this paper focusses on drug use as a problem in its spatial-material settings. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the contribution traces multiple problematisation processes and related infrastructures.
Findings
From the needle exchange programme’s perspective, drug use is not a singular problem but the effect of multiple problematisation processes. Although those processes are often in conflict with each other, the question is not which one is right, but how social workers manage to hold them together. It is a fragile achievement that requires years of training and ongoing negotiation with local actors. By eliminating Kék Pont’s 8th district office, the Hungarian Government did not only hinder harm reduction in the area but it had also rendered tacit knowledge associated with the needle exchange programme as a “drug place” inaccessible.
Originality/value
The paper is a melancholy intervention – an attempt to preserve tacit knowledge that had accumulated at the needle exchange programme. The retelling of ethnographic stories about this “drug place” is one way of ensuring that other drug policies remain imaginable.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The research upon which our paper is based would not have been possible without the generous help and support of various individuals and organisations. We are deeply grateful to harm reduction workers at Kék Pont’s former office in the 8th district of Budapest for their friendship and collegiality; to social workers at OSSIP in Frankfurt am Main for showing us around and sharing their everyday practices with us; to József Rácz, Thomas Scheffer and Bernd Werse for their insightful suggestions at various stages of our work; and to Janie Ondracek, Ildikó Plájás and Jeannette Pols for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.
Citation
Dányi, E. and Csák, R. (2021), "Drug places and spaces of problematisation: the melancholy case of a Hungarian needle exchange programme", Drugs and Alcohol Today, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 190-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/DAT-12-2020-0084
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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