Category Archives: Announcements

Social gathering at the AAA meetings in Chicago

Dear ADTSGers,

T-minus two hours and fifty minutes until our highly anticipated roundtable:
LOOKING BACK, MOVING FORWARD: REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT IN THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF ALCOHOL, DRUGS, AND TOBACCO

Wednesday, November 20, 2013: 8:00 PM-9:45 PM
Grand Tradition (Chicago Hilton)

Please join us afterwards at George’s Cocktail Lounge located at 646 S Wabash Ave. We will be congregating in the lobby of the Hilton at 10pm to walk down together. Otherwise, we hope to see you there!

george's cocktail

George's cocktail lounge

 

 

 

 

 

As posted on YELP: The sign says it all!

 

2013 AAA Meetings in Chicago

Dear ADTSG members,

Its that time of year again and we are gearing up for the American Anthropological Association Meetings in Chicago. This year, we have put together a fantastic roundtable examining issues of public engagement in the Anthropology of alcohol, drugs and tobacco. It will take place on Wednesday evening, from 8:00 – 9:45 pm in the Chicago Hilton: Grand Tradition Room.

GreetingsChicago

Our panelists include:

  • William Garriott (Drake University)
  • Helena Hansen (Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research)
  • Daniel Lende (University of South Florida)
  • Mark Nichter (University of Arizona)
  • Mimi Nichter (University of Arizona)
  • J. Bryan Page (University of Miami)

Roland Moore (Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation) will be serving as moderator. We are still accepting questions in advance for the panelists (email to atdstudygroup@gmail.com) , but you will also have an opportunity to fill out question cards during the roundtable, as well as send in questions via twitter to the hashtag #ADTSG in real time. We envision this as a very open, lively conversation.

Afterwards, we invite you to join us for a social gathering to kick off the AAAs before the bars and restaurants get too crowded. We will be meeting in the lobby of the Chicago Hilton at 10 pm to venture together to a location that is to be determined. We will make sure to announce the location on our website and on twitter (@PharmaCulture) for those of you unable to attend the round table.

Our final event is our annual business meeting on Saturday evening, from 6:00 – 7:45 pm in the Chicago Hilton, McCormick Board Room. We will be discussing our progress over the last year and making plans for 2014. If you have never been to one of our meetings, we encourage you to attend! For more information about ADTSG at the AAA, visit our conferences page.

Best,

Taz Karim, Chair

SFAA 2014 Call for Papers – October 12, 2013

Silk Roads: Place and space in alcohol, tobacco and other drug use 

Society for Applied Anthropology Meeting Albuquerque, NM, March 18-22, 2014 

Co-organizers: Juliet P. Lee and Tazin Karim

silk roads

Space is an important element to consider in  the anthropology of Alcohol, Drugs and Tobacco. For example, electronic media are increasing our capacities to synchronically link across space. In this new landscape, individuals have carved out spaces to exchange ideas and experiences with Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco Use. Some have even leveraged these technologies to exchange drugs themselves. How have traditional conceptions of “space” transformed in modern times in the context of drug use? What are the implications for research, education, and prevention? We invite papers that consider the issue of “place,” broadly conceived, as a frame of reference for drug users (clinics; neighborhoods; nationalities); or for drug use (settings; use contexts); as nodes or destinations in trans- or multi-local studies; de-centered or placeless spaces of consumption and exchange; or symbolic uses of place in drug studies.

Topics could include:

  1. Online drug forums
  2. Social media and drug use
  3. The transportation of drugs across borders
  4. Varying meanings of drugs across spaces
  5. Places of risk & pleasure
  6. The country and the city in drug use studies
  7. Drug use at the crossroads: “Intersectionality” in ATOD studies

Please send 250-word abstract to Juliet P. Lee (jlee@prev.org) by October 12, 2013

We will notify you of acceptance by October 14 so you will have time to submit individually if necessary. We look forward to your contributions!

Updating our roster

***Apologies if we have already bombarded you with these requests***attendance

Hello fellow ADTSG members,

The Society for Medical Anthropology has requested that we provide them with a list of active members list in our study group. Since we are no longer allowed to collect dues from our members, the size of this list will directly influence the amount of support we receive from the SMA which will fund things like our student paper prize and special interest group events.

Unfortunately, there is no efficient way to do this other than to humbly ask you to take a moment of your time and send an email to adtstudygroup@gmail.com with your name, email address and affiliation (if any). Also, if you have friends or colleagues who would benefit from engaging with this group, please forward this message on to them.

Also, if you are subscribed to this blog, please take a moment to also send a breif bio to adtstudygroup@gmail.com  so we can put you on our member’s profile page. Our goal is to leverage this website to help our membership connect and collaborate on research/writing.  We also hope it will serve as a set of resources for scholars interested in Alcohol, Drugs and Tobacco studies.

Thanks in advance for your participation and please let us know if there is anything we can do to improve your experience as a member of our study group.

Warm regards,

Taz Karim, Chair
Alcohol, Drugs and Tobacco Study Group
Society for Medical Anthropology

AAA 2013: Request for Roundtable Discussion Questions

The Alcohol, Drugs, & Tobacco Study Group of the Society for Medical Anthropology has organized a roundtable for the upcoming AAA meetings in Chicago.  The roundtable, “Looking Back, Moving Forward: Reflections on Public Engagement in the Anthropology of Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco,” will take place on Wednesday, November 20, 2013, at 8:00 pm – 9:45pm at the Chicago Hilton.

The roundtable will focus on the centrality of public engagement in the development of the anthropology of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco (ADT).  Anthropologists of ADT have consistently contributed to projects, collaborations, and conversations marked by this type of commitment. Public engagement, however, has taken many shapes and held various meanings for anthropologists of ADT.  Panelists will discuss their previous projects, current engagements, and future research agendas in order to reflect on the various roles and manifestations of public engagement in the past, present, and future of the anthropology of ADT.  While addressing the specific themes of ADT, this roundtable also speaks to scholars working in the broader field of medical anthropology.  In recent years, the field has seen a marked increase in socially relevant and politically engaged scholarship. Now more than ever, medical anthropologists are consciously addressing real life problems and issues through their writing, speaking, and social activism and advocacy.  Many, particularly junior scholars, search for ways to reach beyond the academy to engage the public and exact social, political, and intellectual change.  This roundtable serves as a forum from which to discuss the ways in which we can shape our relationship with the public and our place within the public in the future.

The panel is organized by Shana Harris (National Development and Research Institutes) and Tazin Karim (Michigan State University), and is chaired by Roland Moore (Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation). The roundtable participants are William Garriott (Drake University), Helena Hansen (New York University), Daniel Lende (University of South Florida), Mark Nichter (University of Arizona), and J. Bryan Page (University of Miami).

To help catalyze the discussion, we welcome any questions you have regarding alcohol, drugs, or tobacco research (past or future) that you would like this distinguished group of presenters to tackle.  Feel free to submit any questions prior to the conference to Roland Moore at roland@prev.org .

Thank you!

Shana Harris, Taz Karim, and Roland Moore

Contemporary Drug Problems Conference – Aarhus University, August 21-23

“COMPLEXITY: RESEARCHING ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUGS IN A MULTIPLE WORLD” Aarhus University, August 21-23

Main theme

The last decade has seen the idea of complexity gain force in social science and epidemiological research. As social problems of all kinds prove less amenable to change than is sometimes suggested by the reductionist demands of orthodox positivist approaches, theory and method have turned to ways of articulating the elusive, uncertain and complex.

Continue reading

2013 ADTSG Graduate Student Paper Prize

The Alcohol, Drug, and Tobacco Study Group (ADTSG) of the Society for Medical Anthropology requests submissions for the best graduate student paper in the anthropology of alcohol, drugs, pharmaceuticals, tobacco or similar substances. Qualifying submissions will be judged by a committee of ADTSG members.  The author of the winning paper will receive a cash award of $100 and her or his name will be announced in Anthropology News and at the Society for Medical Anthropology awards ceremony at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in November. Submissions from all anthropological sub-disciplines are encouraged. Continue reading

New Volume: Addiction Trajectories (Eds. Eugene Raikhel & William Garriott)

We’re very pleased to announce the publication of this new edited volume on the anthropology of addiction.

 Addiction Trajectories
Eugene Raikhel & William Garriott, eds.
Duke University Press, 2013
Paperback: $25.95 ISBN: 978-0-8223-5364-5
Series: Experimental Futures
http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=47016

Download and read a free copy of the Introduction here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/131686909/Addiction-Trajectories-edited-by-Eugene-Raikhel-and-William-Garriott Continue reading

Health Comm Fellowship with the Center for Tobacco Products and the FDA

Four fellowship opportunities are available within the Office of Health Communication and Education (OHCE) in the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). CTP aims to protect Americans from tobacco-related death and disease by regulating the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products and by educating the public, especially young people, about tobacco products and the dangers their use poses to themselves and others. CTP oversees the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

For more information, visit: http://www.orau.org/science-education/internships-scholarships-fellowships/description.aspx?JobId=13984

Danger/Security in Drug Research

When I tell people what I do for a living – that I am an interdisciplinary researcher who primarily conducts ethnography with active methamphetamine users – they often don’t actually know what I do. When I go on to explain that a key part of ethnography – participant observation –  involves “hanging out”, chatting, spending time with people as they go about their daily lives, the first question people ask is nearly always, “Aren’t you scared?” (After all, methamphetamine users are regularly portrayed as the most scandalous of all drug users – if you don’t believe me, check out the Meth Project’s Not Even Once campaign).

Always wanting to challenge the stereotype, my response to these questions is usually an abrupt and sometimes bristly “No” followed by “Why should I be scared? They’re people too”, or “Just because they do drugs doesn’t mean they’re dangerous”. And it’s true, their drug use itself does not make my participants dangerous. However, the patterns of criminality some engage in may place them (and subsequently me) in dangerous situations. Therefore, sometimes I am scared when I’m conducting my field work. For the most part, I rely on basic common sense. If someone cold-calls me to talk, I meet him/her somewhere where we both feel safe; I take extra precautions about being alone with men; I am quicker to go to the home of someone I have met previously or who came to me referred by a participant I trust. Most of all, I try to follow Dr. Susan Phillips’ dictum, “you need to trust in order to be trusted” (Phillips 1999), but every now and then I encounter a participant or a situation in which I am forced to recall the many differences between my “normal” and that of the men and women who so openly share their worlds with me. Continue reading