Commentary
Situating the syringe

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Abstract

What’s at stake when the syringe becomes a tool for thinking? Reflecting on the production of Social Science of the Syringe, this commentary describes the empirical challenges of encountering injecting drug users directly affected by Harm Reduction policies as significant stakeholders in the expression of drug problems.

Section snippets

Social science with the syringe

Addressing the policy, practice and evaluation of harm reduction as involving a paradigm shift in situating the syringe in the world of the drug user, and social scientists as the experts in examining this relationship, I envisaged research on drug injecting differently. Examining why scientific studies on needle exchange had not sufficiently engaged the risk practice of sharing, and the difficulties associated with both qualitative and quantitative methods in producing knowledge of syringe

Building rapports with injecting drug users

In order for researchers to produce situated knowledge, that anticipates, situates and involves those who are addressed, Stengers calls for the production of ‘rapports’ (2011, p. 62). Concurring with Donna Haraway, Stengers describes the creation of a rapport as always ‘a local, precarious event’ (2011, p. 62). Without the creation of a rapport Stengers argues there is no knowledge (2011, p. 62). What interests Stengers are the questions raised by the rapport. These questions, she insists ‘are

Reclaiming harm reduction research

The challenge of learning from others, using Stengers politics of ontology, is to create an encountering where the researcher and drug users ‘regard each other as equals’ and encountered others are ‘empowered to evaluate the relevance of your interest, to agree or refuse to answer, and even to spit in your human, too human face’ (2011, p. 63). The power of the encounter argues Stengers lies in its capacity not to foster a politics of tolerance towards the other but ‘giving to the world the

The syringe as a tool for thinking

Focusing on drug users knowledge, we were confronted with the relevance of the object of the syringe for social scientific research. Experimenting with the syringe as a tool for thinking with made it possible to re-assess how drug policy, drugs research and drug users have been constructed, analysed and evaluated by academic experts. Learning from the situation of injecting, I showed how drug users objected to, undermined and challenged the assumptions, biases, blind spots and beliefs of

Another science of drugs research

If social scientists, drugs researchers, policy makers and analysts are to take seriously the provocations and propositions of Social Science of the Syringe how might we continue to engage in a politics of public research on drug use? The recent focus on researching, analysing and critiquing the multiple ways drug policy and drugs research construct, constitute and represent drug problems and the problem of drugs marks a significant shift towards addressing the controversies surrounding illicit

Conflict of interest

I confirm I have no conflict of interest.

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