Authors
Tristan Duncan, Bernadette Sebar, Jessica Lee, Cameron Duff
Publication date
2020/5/1
Journal
Social science & medicine
Volume
253
Pages
112922
Publisher
Pergamon
Description
Drug consumption rooms directly attempt to intervene in and govern the place and time of drug use. Whilst the risk-reducing potentials of these interventions have been thoroughly evaluated, the consumption room literature offers fewer insights into the embodied, affective and situated dynamics that underscore service delivery. In this paper, we take up the notion of atmosphere to explore these dynamics in greater depth. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic research in a German drug consumption room, we describe the manner in which atmospheres came to pervade and condition service encounters. More than simply providing texture to activities within the consumption room, we show how atmospheres gave rise to a distinct range of bodily capacities and therapeutic effects. Critically, these atmospheric affordances exceeded the risk-reducing objectives of the consumption room to encompass an emergent …
Total citations
20202021202220231525
Scholar articles
T Duncan, B Sebar, J Lee, C Duff - Social science & medicine, 2020