CFP: Special Issue of the Journal of Extreme Anthropology – Treating Addictions

* Call for Papers: Special Issue of the Journal of Extreme Anthropology *

“Treating Addictions: On Failures, Harms, and Hopes of Success”

Guest editors:

Aleksandra Bartoszko, VID Specialized University

Paul Christensen, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Addiction, recovery, and treatment are contested cultural categories shaped by medical dictates, political constraints, and moral economies – from biomedical to religious and popular conceptions of vice and morality, appropriate behavior, and ways of living. This special issue of the Journal of Extreme Anthropology aims to examine how individuals and institutions adapt or resist the concepts of addiction, recovery, and treatment across different ethnographic contexts. The issue will also interrogate addiction treatments as sociocultural institutions that increasingly represent the morally preferred solution to drug use and addiction.

We are inviting contributions exploring questions related to contemporary addiction treatment programs from across the globe and their struggles to maintain authority or achieve their goals. We welcome papers grounded in ethnographic, anthropological, and qualitative social research, focusing on individuals’ engagements with institutional standards and principles, as well as institutional responses to failures. We are particularly interested in papers asking questions such as: How do the treatment programs maintain, deepen, and/or eradicate realities that they purport to address (such as social inequalities, stigma, or overdose)? What are the consequences for individuals struggling to realize institutionally and culturally dictated criteria of success? When and how does treatment cause harm? How do individuals who have been labeled as addicts or patients navigate their daily existence negotiating these categories? Can we imagine any other forms of inclusion of people with addiction than turning them into patients? What is at stake for the different actors involved in private and state treatment and rehabilitation industries?

Articles should be no longer than 8000 words. In addition to full-length papers, we invite alternative contributions such as photo essays, documentaries, or ethno-dramas. Please contact the editors prior to submission to discuss the proposed contribution and format possibilities.

Deadline for final papers: July 30, 2019. Authors are encouraged to contact editors before the deadline with abstract or work in progress.

All submissions should follow the journal style guidelines and be submitted here: https://journals.uio.no/index.php/JEA/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions

For any queries please contact Aleksandra Bartoszko: aleksandra.bartoszko@vid.no