“Waiting for Chronic”: Time, cannabis and counterculture in Hawai‘i

What does it mean not to wait? It is possible to live in ways which do not entail waiting? Through close examination of time and its articulations among a group of US 1960s-generation ‘hippies’ and younger ‘drop outs’ in a rural backwater of Hawai‘i, I argue in this paper that it is possible to live without waiting. Drawing on Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1953) and Baba Ram Dass’ countercultural invocation to ‘remember, be here now’, I explore unexpected interruptions to anticipated temporal flows. Structured around three vignettes on failing to hitchhike, learning to do ethnographic fieldwork through stopping trying to do ethnographic fieldwork and an unexpected interruption in the supermarket, this paper builds up a picture of non-waiting in action. Located against a backdrop of waiting as temporal interruption and affective mode, I argue that this group sought to collectively disrupt the affective modes of indifference and/or frustration they grew up with in urban mainland America. Through new forms of affective engagement they became able to collectively reframe temporal interruption as existing within rather than without local temporal flows, interruptions ceased to be ruptures to temporal textures but part of their very fabric. Located within temporal flows, they did not force individuals out of a moral community of (time is money) efficient, productive citizens but reframed productivity itself in terms of producing sociality, positive affective experience and communitas. Out of a multitude of moments of not waiting, a temporal texture of American counterculture emerges

New directions in qualitative research ethics

No abstract available

‘Out of Order’: the double burden of menstrual etiquette and the subtle exclusion of women from public space in Scotland

This article examines the double burden of ‘menstrual etiquette’ and the implications for women’s inclusion in public spaces in Scotland today. Beginning from Laws’ work on ‘menstrual etiquette’, we explore how menstrual etiquette is characterised primarily by the burden of rendering menstruation invisible, both discursively and practically. However, women not only work to ensure that others remain unaware that they are menstruating; they depend on technologies, such as menstrual product dispensers and bins, to facilitate this process of rendering menstruation invisible. When these technologies are absent or poorly maintained, women experience a double burden: not only must they maintain the social invisibility of menstruation but do so without social or infrastructural support or drawing attention to this absence (for fear of breaching the discursive silence demanded of menstrual etiquette). We locate poor maintenance of facilities within the very same ‘civilising process’ that has pushed women’s bodily management to the furthest reaches of the private sphere. Socially invisible, these infrastructural supports are granted low status and poorly maintained. The pressure to maintain conceptual silence around menstruation limits women’s capacity to contest this neglect and, in turn, perpetuates their exclusion from public space. This article, then, exposes the nature and the compounding temporal and affective burden of menstrual etiquette and advocates for breaking discursive silences to facilitate much needed social change

Dirty scholarship and dirty lives: explorations in bodies and belonging

What is dirt, and how is it used in processes of Othering? This is the central theme of this opening, introductory chapter. The chapter brings together a number of theoretical approaches to dirt. In exploring the central role of dirt and dirt management to the civilising process, we (re)produce a particular sort of history of European relations with dirt – a history characterised as much by dirt as a site of distinction as by an apparent increasing aversion to the dirt of bodily exuviae. By bringing this into dialogue with a second sort of history of European relations with dirt, characterised by shifting ideas about illness and contagion, we explore the kinds of work that discourses about dirt do. Viewed together, it becomes clear that central to both histories are processes of Othering – of the dirty by those who define the dirty. This links to the third theme of the introduction which explores specifically symbolic dimensions of dirt, drawing Douglas’s idea of dirt as ‘matter out of place’ into dialogue with Kristeva’s idea of the abject. In layering a discussion of dirt as abjection upon dirt as distinction we come back to contagion, and the power of (re)producing self/other boundaries through dirt. Together, these tell a story of dirt as a site of power, and a tool used by those who define the dirty to oppress those they consider unclean

New for who?: Novelty and continuity in drug-related practices of people who use new psychoactive substances

New (or Novel) Psychoactive Substances (NPS) are so named because they are characterized by a shared property of “newness.” In this article, we critically unpack NPS as a category and as a single object, bounded by a shared “newness”. In doing so, we examine whose ways of knowing are afforded epistemological authority and the harms that can emerge from an overemphasis on pharmacological properties at the expense of everyday practice. Through accounts of buying and selling NPS discussed in interviews with five “at risk” populations in Scotland, we examine the ways NPS use can be more usefully characterized by continuity with existing practices, relationships, and identities than by novelty. This raises the question that if everyday practices are not characterized by newness, what makes new psychoactive substances new? Comparing the discourses of pharmacologists and people who use them exposes contrasting claims about the “reality” of NPS: While pharmacologists describe their own ways of knowing as real, they often downgrade others as mere belief; those who use them do not do this. A common epistemological hierarchy is shared between these parties, where everyday practices (often characterized by continuity) are devalued relative to pharmacological ways of knowing that foreground novelty. When services have finite resources, this epistemological authority has significant consequences: When attention is paid to “newness” (in an attempt to gain mastery of an ever-shifting drug landscape), it is not being paid to the ways NPS are consumed within wider contexts characterized more by continuity with “traditional" drug use than divergence

A history of future-thinking initiatives in New Zealand, 1936–2010: How New Zealand measures up against international commitments

The purpose of this report is threefold: (i) to learn lessons from the past and present a useful model for emerging initiatives in the future; (ii) to provide greater access to the existing knowledge established by these initiatives (so that earlier contributions can be built on), and (iii) to provide a repository for this information.&nbsp

Community and University Building Partner Work-Study Program

1. The UNO Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Center 2. Community Partners: Avenue Scholars Foundation and Metropolitan Community College 3. Placement Organization: Service Learning Academy 4. Evaluation Model: Institutional Commitment to Service (Holland, 1997

Paying attention to women's ageing bodies in recovery from substance use

Background: Health-related research on women who use drugs tends to focus on reproductive and sexual health and treatment. Missing from the picture is an exploration of mid-life and older women’s bodily experiences of transitioning from long-term substance use into recovery. While there are a growing number of studies that explore the intersection of drug use and ageing, the gaps in analysis lie in the intersections between drug use, recovery, ageing, gender, and the body. Methods: In-depth qualitative interviews were undertaken with 19 women in the UK who self-identified as ‘in recovery’ from illicit drug use. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis techniques. The study received ethical approval from the University of Glasgow. Results: Key findings from the interviews relate to the women’s personal sense of power in relation to current and future health status, the challenges they endured in terms of ageing in recovery and transitioning through the reproductive life cycle, and the somatic effects of trauma on women’s recovery. The findings demonstrate that health in recovery involves more than abstinence from drugs. Discussion: Moving from the body in active drug use to the body in recovery is not without its challenges for mid-life and older women. New sensations and feelings - physical and mental - must be re-interpreted in light of their ageing and drug-free bodies. This study reveals some of the substantive sex-based differences that older women in active drug use and recovery experience. This has important implications for healthcare and treatment for women in drug services and women with histories of drug use more generally