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Article
Publication date: 19 June 2021

Endre Dányi and Róbert Csák

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…

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.

Details

Drugs and Alcohol Today, vol. 21 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1745-9265

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 1980

The Rohm and Haas European Region of the Rohm and Haas Company is the outright winner of the company's first annual award for industrial safety.

Abstract

The Rohm and Haas European Region of the Rohm and Haas Company is the outright winner of the company's first annual award for industrial safety.

Details

Pigment & Resin Technology, vol. 9 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0369-9420

Article
Publication date: 1 May 1978

In a recent reference to changes brought about by the local government reorganisation of 1974, we criticised some of the names given to the new areas. Some of these name changes…

Abstract

In a recent reference to changes brought about by the local government reorganisation of 1974, we criticised some of the names given to the new areas. Some of these name changes have made difficulties for those who follow from afar the doings of local authorities, as well as raising the ire of local people. Local names, however, are not the only casualty. The creation of new and larger governmental organisations rarely, if ever, results in economy and as anticipated, it was not long before the new local authorities were being directed to embrace financial stringency and all that it incurs. One such other casualty has been the loss of so many of the annual reports of local authority departments, very few now arriving at BFJ offices. In every case, the reason has been the same—severe restrictions on spending. Not that this was not necessary in many fields, but in respect of annual reports, we are convinced it was false economy. For so many of the reports, it was our pleasure to review them in the pages of BFJ. A prominent Labour politician was once heard to refer to them as “hard and dry reports for hard and dry officials”. It all depends probably on what you are looking for in them. Statistics there must be but most enforcement officers and public analysts, endeavour to keep these to the minimum, the general impression being that these are “dry”. If you are looking for trends, for comparison of the year under review with preceding years and then for comparing the results reported in one part of the country with another, where the population, eating habits, consumer reactions may be different, the tables of statistics are highly important.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 80 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

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