The Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco Study Group (ADTSG) is seeking a new chairperson. The role of the Chair is to coordinate the group’s efforts within the Society for Medical Anthropology (SMA). Some key aspects of this role are:

1. Coordinating and leading the annual business meeting at/around the AAA conference
2. Working with SMA leadership on SMA Special Interest Group (SIG) initiatives and attending annual SIG leadership meetings
3. Developing a short annual report on SIG activities for SMA
4. Coordinating annual prizes (graduate student paper prize, graduate student travel award, and contingent faculty travel award) including marketing the prizes and recruiting prize reviewers
5. Working with Student Liaison and Vice Chair to promote SIG and plan SIG-related activities, publications, or events.

The role requires on an average time commitment of less than five hours per week with the weeks around the AAA conference requiring slightly more time. This role is not compensated by the SMA, but it is a great way to provide service to the field and network with individuals who do research on alcohol, drugs, and tobacco.

Interested individuals should email the current Chair, Breanne Casper, via email (breeicasper@gmail.com), by October 30, 2023. The new Chair will be elected at the next ADTSG Business Meeting at the AAA Annual Meeting in Toronto.

Here is the latest installment of ADTSG’s student profiles feature!

These profiles are a way for the ADTSG membership to become acquainted with the next generation of anthropologists of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco.  In this vein, each profile will introduce one graduate or undergraduate student to the group by asking them a series of questions related to their background and career aspirations in this field.

In this installment, we are profiling Dohyun Im, a M.S. student at American University.

Why are you interested in alcohol, drugs, and tobacco research?

I majored in psychology, so I was genuinely interested in creating an inclusive society where the diversity of their sociocultural backgrounds and personal experiences would be appreciated. Yet, only studying psychology, I could not get a holistic understanding of human nature, and by taking a Drug and Society class with Dr. Dan Small as an elective course during my undergrad year, a turning point occurred for my interest in anthropological theories and the current phenomena of drug overdose and harm reduction cases as a way to understand the sociological narratives of the causes, consequences, and treatment of people in mistreated and vulnerable circumstances. 

What are your research plans for studying drugs/drug use?

For me, drug overdose and harm reduction is one way to understand others’ daily struggles and how the community and the greater society should cooperate and embrace the diversity of individuals. Based on that, I am looking forward to publishing the research paper I am working on now, aiming to synthesize the current phenomena of the increase in drug overdose after the COVID-19 pandemic and takeaways for the future pandemic crisis. 

How does anthropological theory inform your research?

I believe anthropology has evolved as a research tool to truly understand and embrace the ethnographic data of substance users’ lived experiences and everyday realities. Further, medical anthropology began to merge the experimental contribution of suffering from mental illness to political or economic approaches dealing with socially constructed inequalities. Therefore, employing anthropological theory in my study is to examine and depathologize people in marginalized populations from the stereotypical lens and demonstrate a holistic understanding of the variety of complex implicit and explicit sociocultural values, sociostructural inequalities, and the formation of a sense of belonging. 

What do you hope to do after you graduate with your Master’s degree?

I plan to pursue a Ph.D. after my Master’s in Justice, Law, and Criminology. I would like to apply psychology, sociology, and anthropology in Ph.D. programs not only limited to criminology, which was my core interest. As those disciplines are interrelated to each other, I am looking for a program that can embrace and broaden my goal of obtaining and inspiring others about the holistic understanding of human society and, ultimately, creating a better world based on the inclusion of people in a manner of respect and dignity.  

If you are an anthropology student and would like to be profiled for the ADTSG website, please contact ADTSG’s Chair, Breanne Casper, at breeicasper@gmail.com for more information!

Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health is seeking three post-doctoral fellows with doctoral degrees in public health or an allied science to work closely with Dr. Hannah Cooper on several NIDA-funded R01 studies with people who use drugs in rural and urban areas. Projects include:

(1) A longitudinal qualitative study designed to “walk alongside” pregnant/ postpartum people who use drugs, to learn about their (1) health concerns, (2) harm reduction and other health practices, (3) experiences engaging with services, and (4) the influences of their risk environments on these concerns, practices, and service engagement. Participants will live in two racialized rural regions in Georgia and in two racialized urban regions in Georgia.

(2) A longitudinal mixed methods study with people who use drugs in rural Kentucky, designed to understand the impact of risk environments on harm reduction practices, and the impact of a community-driven intervention on these practices.

(3) A longitudinal DiD analysis of existing data analyzing the impact of policies on drug-related harms and people who inject drugs, and inequities in these harms, using multiple waves of data from the CDC’s NHBS project.

In addition to working with Dr. Cooper, post-doctoral fellows will also be able to work with a wide range of investigators on these projects (e.g., Drs. April Young, Rasheeta Chandler, Natalie Hernandez, Anandi Sheth, Claire Sterk, Sabriya Linton, Danielle Hayley, Umed Ibragimov, Leo Beletsky, Janet Cummings, Courtney Yarbrough).

Fellows will dedicate most of their time to writing papers and analyzing related data. Successful applicants will have expertise in harm reduction and/or maternal health, and extensive expertise with analyzing qualitative and quantitative data. Candidates must have recently earned a doctorate, or, if they are still in candidacy, must have scheduled their defense date.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: A doctoral degree or equivalent in in public health or an allied science. Candidates must have recently earned a doctorate, or, if they are still in candidacy, must have scheduled their defense date. Excellent scientific writing ability and strong oral communication skills. The ability to work effectively and collegially with colleagues. Successful applicants will have expertise in harm reduction and/or maternal health, and extensive expertise with analyzing qualitative and quantitative data.

The fellow will be based at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. This fellowship is a one-year, full-time position, with a possible one- to three-year extension, based on funding and performance. The salary and benefits will be commensurate with NIH standards.

To apply for this position please submit a cover letter and CV to Dr. Cooper at hcoope3@emory.edu and submit an application via Emory Careers. When emailing Dr. Cooper, the subject heading on the email message should read “R01 Post-doctoral application.” Applications will be reviewed beginning on June 15, with a start date of 7/1/23 or later.

For more information, visit this link.

Here is the latest installment of ADTSG’s student profiles feature!

These profiles are a way for the ADTSG membership to become acquainted with the next generation of anthropologists of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco.  In this vein, each profile will introduce one graduate or undergraduate student to the group by asking them a series of questions related to their background and career aspirations in this field.

In this installment, we are profiling Katelynn Carlsen, a M.A. student at the University of South Florida.

Why did you choose to study anthropology?

I originally chose to pursue a degree in anthropology because it can encompass pretty
much anything, and I had a wide range of interests. Throughout my undergraduate
degree, I honed my research interests down to medical anthropology and then further
down to mental health. My professor at California State University, Stanislaus, Dr. Ryan
Logan, was instrumental in shaping my research. I chose to pursue my master’s degree
in applied anthropology because I wanted to help address problems within the
biomedical system and the treatment of people with mental health problems.

Why are you interested in alcohol, drugs, and tobacco research? 

Substance use is closely tied to other mental health problems. Anxiety and depression
are common comorbidities. I am interested in substance use partially because of this
overlap. Substance abuse can develop from substance use intended to mediate the
symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. In these cases, addressing the larger structural
or environmental issues that can lead to increased levels of anxiety or depression is
important. This is something that has always been really interesting to me. Substance
abuse also runs in my family and is something that has always been a part of my life, so
it was an area of research that I felt connected to.

What are your research plans for studying alcohol, drugs, and tobacco?

Autism and substance abuse are also comorbidities. A future avenue of research would
examine the causes or cues associated with substance use in autistic people. It’s
possible that substance use is higher because of the ableist environment and attitudes
increasing anxiety and depression. This is an area of research I would like to explore
further. Currently, I am researching substance use cues in students at the University of
South Florida (USF).

What do you hope to do after you graduate?

I plan to complete my MA at USF and pursue PhD in Applied Anthropology and an MA
in Public Health at USF. Afterwards, I want to work with nonprofits and harm reduction
programs to help people with substance problems and mental health issues.

If you are an anthropology student and would like to be profiled for the ADTSG website, please contact ADTSG’s Chair, Breanne Casper, at breeicasper@gmail.com for more information!

The Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco Study Group (ADTSG) of the Society for Medical Anthropology invites applications for a travel award to attend the 2023 AAA Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada.  An award of $100 will be given to a graduate student presenting a paper at the conference that engages questions related to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, or other psychoactive substance use.  The ADTSG Graduate Student Travel Award is awarded annually on a competitive basis and reviewed by a committee comprised of ADTSG members.

QUALIFYING CRITERIA

• Applicant must be currently enrolled in a graduate program
• Applicant must be presenting a paper at the 2023 AAA Annual Meeting (this award is open to both online and in-person attendees)
• Applicant must be a member of the Society for Medical Anthropology (see http://americananthro.org for instructions on how to join)

SUBMISSION PROCESS

• Submit your paper abstract, university affiliation, graduate program (M.A., Ph.D., etc.), and contact information (no additional materials are required) to Breanne Casper, Chair of ADTSG, at breeicasper@gmail.com.
• Applications must be received by 5:00PM EST on August 1, 2023, for full consideration.

Questions may be directed to Breanne Casper at the above email address. We look forward to your submissions!

The Alcohol, Drug, and Tobacco Study Group (ADTSG) of the Society for Medical Anthropology invites submissions for the best graduate student paper in the anthropology of alcohol, drugs, tobacco, or other psychoactive substance use. A committee of ADTSG members will judge qualifying submissions. The author of the winning paper will receive a cash award of $100, and their name will be announced at the Society for Medical Anthropology awards ceremony at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in November 2023. Submissions from all anthropological sub-disciplines are encouraged.

QUALIFYING CRITERIA

• No more than 9,000 words (including references and notes)
• Must be based on original fieldwork and data
• Must have been written in the past 12 months
• Primary or first author must be a graduate student at the time of submission
• May be unpublished or submitted for publication at the time of submission

JUDGING CRITERIA

• Originality of fieldwork and data
• Richness of substantive or evidentiary materials
• Clarity of anthropological methods
• Linkage of work to social science literature
• Effective use of theory and data
• Organization, quality of writing, and coherence of argument

SUBMISSION PROCESS

• Please do not include your name or any identifying information in the paper itself.
• Papers must be double spaced and in PDF format (please include page numbers).
• References and in-text citations should be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style.
• Please submit via email to Breanne Casper, Chair of ADTSG, at breeicasper@gmail.com.
• Submissions must be received by 5:00PM EST on August 1, 2023, for full consideration.

Questions may be directed to Breanne Casper at the above email address. We look forward to your submissions!

AAA 2023 ANNUAL MEETING CALL FOR PAPERS

From Decriminalization to Professionalization: The Mainstreaming of Psychedelic Usage

A select few U.S. cities and/or states (e.g., Denver, Oregon, Seattle) have recently elected to decriminalize the use of psilocybin and are moving towards mainstreaming psychedelic-assisted treatment. This session welcomes thematic content that explores the transition from the decriminalization of psychedelics, its subsequent medicalization and professionalization, and its effects on caregivers, health providers, and communities at large.

Consider contributing a presentation for this session, which will be reviewed by the Association for the Anthropology of Consciousness. Please indicate interest by Tuesday, March 21, by contacting Nicole Torres at torresn5@wwu.edu or Lisa Gezon at lgezon@uab.edu.

AAA 2023 ANNUAL MEETING CALL FOR PAPERS

Alcohol in Transition: Conflict and Encounter in our Social Worlds

Panel Co-Organizers: Christina Tekie Collins (Indiana University Bloomington, collinct@iu.edu) and Brandon D. Lundy (Kennesaw State University, blundy@kennesaw.edu)

* Please send your title, affiliation and contact information, abstract (maximum of 3,500 characters including spaces), and 5-6 keywords by March 16, 2023, for consideration by email to the panel organizers. 

Panel Proposal Abstract

Alcohol, as a special class of food-drug, is a rich ethnographic object for the study of both unity and discord. Alcohol as a social lubricant, facilitator, and binder brings people and communities together around life events. However, drinking also often acts as a catalyst in the moments leading up to dispute and discord. Attitudes and actions surrounding the production, distribution, sale, and consumption of alcohol are sites of social, cultural, political, economic, religious, medical, and environmental tension. This panel explores how alcohol serves as a useful lens for exploring the socio-cultural processes of conflict and its reconciliation. Specifically, in line with this year’s theme, Transitions, we examine how conflict emerges through encounter-not in a causal, but liminal sense-the build-up, the bubbling, and the brewing before the bonding or blowout. 

What story does alcohol tell us about conflict, as a social process, in transition? The anthropological literature on alcohol either examines drinking as a cultural act that gives insight into our social worlds (Douglas 1987; Heath 2000) or emphasizes a public health perspective through research on intoxication, addiction, and other harmful drinking practices (Babor et al. 2023; Singer 2012). Hunt and Barker (2001) call for scholars to conceptually bridge this divide-arguably, a divide that arises from alcohol’s status as an embodied material culture that is simultaneously food and drug-or “food with difference” (Dietler 2006; Dietler and Herbich 2006, 398). As a food, alcohol indexes the richness of social life as a marker of cultural, linguistic, racial/ethnic, religious, political, gender, generational, and class identities; but, as a drug, alcohol’s psychoactive and intoxicating properties makes it a potent and paradoxical agent of social tradition, transformation, transgression, and trauma. Over the last two decades, several scholars have addressed this divide through the study of alcoholism and Alcohol Anonymous (AA) globally (Borovoy 2005; Christensen 2015, Raikhel 2016). However, how might an approach that more broadly interrogates the relationship between alcohol and conflict, in transition, further bridge such divergent conversations? 

From compulsion to addiction; conviviality to belligerence; legality to illegality; and indigenous production to commercialization, we invite papers that explore the relationship between alcohol and conflict. This may include research that examines transitional states of being (e.g., soberness to intoxication); mediations between material-spiritual realms (i.e., alcohol in religious ritual); regional, national, and/or global rivalries (e.g., corporate versus craft alcohol production); prohibition and resistance (e.g., informal brewing/distilling versus state regulation); alcohol as a symbol of repression or resistance; and the many other tensions arising from our everyday encounters with alcohol. Overall, we ask, in what ways does alcohol challenge our conception of conflict, in transition, or even transition, in conflict, to better understand our ever-changing, turbulent, social realities in an increasingly globalized world.  

References 

Babor, Thomas F., Sally Casswell, Kathryn Graham, Taisia Huckle, Michael Livingston, Esa Österberg, Jürgen Rehm, Robin Room, Ingeborg Rossow, and Bundit Sornpaisarn. 2023. Alcohol: No ordinary commodity: Research and public policy. Third Edition. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 

Borovoy, Amy. 2005. The Too-Good Wife: Alcohol, Codependence, and the Politics of Nurturance in Postwar Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press. 

Christensen, Paul. 2015. Japan, Alcoholism, and Masculinity: Suffering Sobriety in Tokyo. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.  

Dietler, Michael. 2006. “Alcohol: Anthropological/Archaeological Perspectives,” Annual Review of Anthropology 35: 229-49. 

Dietler, Michael, and Ingrid Herbich. 2006. “Liquid Material Culture: Following the Flow of Beer Among the Luo of Kenya.” In Grundlegungen. Beiträge zur europäischen und afrikanischen Archäologie für Manfred K. H. Eggert,edited by Hans-Peter Wotzka, 395-407. Tübingen: Francke.  

Heath, Dwight. 2000. Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives on Alcohol and Culture. New York: Routledge.  

Hunt, Geoffrey, and Judith C. Barker. 2001. “Socio-cultural anthropology and alcohol and drug research: Towards a unified theory.” Social Science & Medicine 53(2): 165-88.  

Raikhel, Eugene. 2016. Governing Habits: Treating Alcoholism in the Post-Soviet Clinic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 

Singer, Merrill. 2012. “Anthropology and addiction: An historical review.” Addiction 107(10): 1747-55.

The Behavioral Science Training in Drug Abuse Research (BST) Program in the Rory Meyers College of Nursing at New York University is offering predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships to support behavioral scientists (including anthropologists) studying drug use and related topics!

Check out the below links for more information!

Here is the latest installment of ADTSG’s student profiles feature!

These profiles are a way for the ADTSG membership to become acquainted with the next generation of anthropologists of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco.  In this vein, each profile will introduce one graduate or undergraduate student to the group by asking them a series of questions related to their background and career aspirations in this field.

In this installment, we are profiling Karlie Tessmer, a M.A. student at Simon Fraser University.

Why did you choose to study anthropology?

I chose to study anthropology because of the methods that are employed by anthropology. I am particularly drawn to ethnography and the ability to provide voice to those who are often unheard, misjudged, and silenced. Ethnography allows researchers to provide an accessible outlet for our interlocutors to share their stories while also giving space for the larger contexts and social situations our participants face. Anthropology as a discipline enables me to learn about the interconnections between people and how those people function within a given community.

How does your work overlap with alcohol, drugs, and tobacco research? 

Currently my research examines what “support” means in supportive housing in 2nd stage transitional housing in the lower mainland of Vancouver. My work overlaps with alcohol, drugs, and tobacco as my research site is a harm reduction building, and many of the women I work with either have or had issues with substance use. While my work does not specifically focus on how alcohol, drugs, and tobacco impact the women, these substances play an important role in the overall lived experiences of my interlocutors. In addition, their substance use or recovery of substance use informs what types of support they might need and/or expect to receive as they move through the housing continuum.

What do you hope to do after you graduate?

Following my graduate program, I hope to gain employment as a social planner with the City of Vancouver. I am particularly interested in working in areas such as housing/homelessness, family programming, and harm reduction.

How do you foresee harm reduction informing your future work?

I see harm reduction being a core element in my future work as a social planner, especially because I am focused on Vancouver’s housing crisis. In the lower mainland of Vancouver, a disproportionate number of people who are either houseless or underhoused also suffer from substance use issues. Harm reduction – particularly in relation to Housing First approaches – will be an important component to working with this population if my work is to have any meaningful impact. I hope to carry forward my learnings of harm reduction as a way to advocate for Housing First approaches rather than the Continuum of Care, which is Vancouver’s current housing model. 

If you are an anthropology student and would like to be profiled for the ADTSG website, please contact ADTSG’s Chair, Breanne Casper, at casperb@usf.edu for more information!