Post-war identification: everyday Muslim counterdiscourse in Bosnia Herzegovina

Post-war identification is a unique ethnographic study of the remaking of post-war life in a small ethnically mixed town in Bosnia Herzegovinia. During the war in the 1990's the local Muslim population was expelled, but today has returned to live alongside former enemies. These people are trying to piece together a life from broken fragments that consists of war-related traumas, nationalist propaganda, ruined economies, disappointment, and memories of pre-war life. In this shattered world Torsten Kolind identifies an everyday based, anti-nationalistic counterdiscourse strongly rooted in pre-war life. This resistance is seldom outspoken, but consists rather of a steady insistence on not using ethnic or national categories in identifying oneself and/or others. In a world of despair, the Muslim everyday counterdiscourse gives hope for future coexistence, and points to the intriguing fact that reconcilement often develops from the bottom up, rather than in the political corridors of power. Torsten Kolind's focus on everyday resistance is a highly relevant contribution to contemporary anthropological discussions of the relation between discourse, power, nationalism, and violence

Tre måder rusmidler skabes på i dansk fængselsbaseret stofbehandling: Illegale substanser, medicin, og begrænsninger

I mange europæiske fængsler er der kommet stigende fokus på rusmidler. Der formuleres narkotikapolitikker, rusmidler kontrolleres, bruges og ordineres, og stofbrug bliver behandlet og sanktioneret. I lyset af denne udvikling analyserer artiklen med udgangspunkt i en STS tilgang [Science and Technology Studies] de forskellige måder rusmidler skabes på i danske fængselsbaserede stofbehandlingsprogrammer. Analysen bygger på data fra to kvalitative forskningsprojekter udført i tilsammen otte danske fængsler mellem 2007 og 2010, og mellem 2011 og 2014. Analysen viser tre måder, hvorpå rusmidler gennem forskellige praksisser, diskurser og narrativer skabes: rusmidler som illegale rusmidler, medicin og som begrænsninger. Artiklen viser videre, hvordan politikere, fængselsbetjente, sundhedspersonale, behandlere og indsatte på forskellig vis medvirker til skabelsen af rusmidler inden for disse tre domæner. Artiklen afslutter med at diskutere nogle af de konsekvenser, de forskellige skabelser af rusmidler har for indsattes subjektiviteter og for fængselsbaseret narkotikapolitik.Drugs are an increasingly salient concern in many European prisons. Drug policies are made, drugs are controlled, used and prescribed, and drug use is treated and sanctioned.In light of the growing significance of drugs in prison life, this article analyses the different ways drugs are enacted in Danish drug treatment programmes, based on insights derived  from Science and Technology Studies. the analysis is based on data from two qualitative research projects conducted between 2007 and 2010 and between 2011 and 2014. In all, eight prisons were involved in the two studies. The analysis reveals three distinctive drug enactments characterised by rather different practises, discourses and narratives: drugs as illegal substances, as medicine and as constrainers. Furthermore, the paper examines how policy makers, prison officers, health personnel, counsellors, and prisoners contribute to the construction and organisation of these three enactments, along with the practical and discursive domains in which this work takes place. The articles concludes by assessing some of the implications of these different enactments of drugs for prisoners’ subjectivities

AFVIGELSE OG PERSONOPFATTELSER

The article offers an analytical framework for studying deviance. Research in deviance is relatively sparse in anthropology, by linking up with analysis of different societies’ perceptions of the person, however, it is possible to develop a model for understanding different ideal typical responses to deviant acts. On the one hand we have an idea of the person, which strongly relates acts to the individual, and with a high focus on individual responsibility, on the other end of the continuum act are interpreted as reflections and statements of social relations beyond the single individual. As a consequence of these differences the nature of deviance is perceived in dissimilar ways. In short, one the one hand, deviance is explained by reference to the individual person and strategies of normalisation and integration is pursued. On the other hand deviance is explained extra-personally and strategies of re-categorisation or elimination are developed. The article offers contemporary examples from the author’s studies of respectively punishment and substance abuse treatment. &nbsp

Den betingede accept: Løsladtes identitetsproblemer i mødet med den "normale" verden

This article focuses on aspects of identity and social order in relation to the interaction between the larger society and ex-prisoners seeking to live a normal life without criminality. It is argued that while this interaction and the apparent re-acceptance of the ex-prisoner appear unproblematic on the surface, they are nonetheless ruled by what the author calls conditional acceptance. That is, the ex-prisoner must demonstrate his worthiness by accepting himself as normal and at the same time withdrawing from situations, practices and attitudes where members of the larger society would have difficulties in supporting this normality. Conditional acceptance tends to leave the ex-prisoner in conflict: he is neither fully conformist nor fully deviant. In regard to identity, this vacuum and the conditions it entails, leave the ex-prisoner badly equipped in his attempt to live up to the demands of our modern western ideology of identity - demands such as authenticity, coherence, prestige and responsibility

Fengslenes innsats overfor innsatte med rusproblemer: Ansattes perspektiv

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HVILKET HVEM ER PROBLEMET? Om stofbehandling og personopfattelser i danske fængsler

Stofbehandling handler grundlæggende om at forandre en person fra at være i misbrug til at blive afholdende. Forskellige metoder og behandlingsideologier, såsom Minnesota-modellen, kognitiv behandling eller systemisk terapi, beskriver på hver deres måde, hvordan denne forandring bedst kan opnås. Selv om mange studier har undersøgt effekten af sådanne forskellige typer stofbehandling, herunder hvor få der faktisk bliver afholdende, er der ganske få studier, der har undersøgt, hvad der egentlig sker i stofbehandlingen, og hvordan stofbehandling gøres. Denne artikel fokuserer på forandring og personopfattelse i stofbehandling i danske fængsler og undersøger, hvilket hvem der søges forandret i denne behandlingsform. Vi analyserer behandleres syn på forandring, og hvordan de gør denne forandring i deres behandlingsarbejde, dvs. hvordan de prøver at forandre deres klienter, og hvad de ser som klienternes grundlæggende problemer. Artiklen er baseret på tre måneders deltagerobservation og interview med 16 behandlere ansat i stofbehandlingstilbud i tre danske fængsler. I analysen gøres brug af sondringen i den antropologiske litteratur mellem ego- og sociocentriske personopfattelser. Vi viser, at selv om den egocentriske personopfattelse fylder mest i behandlernes narrativer om, hvad der konstituerer det at være en person og dermed, hvordan forandring kan opnås, står denne personopfattelse ikke alene. I behandlernes narrativer fremstilles klienten således både som en person, der skal arbejde aktivt med at finde sin indre autentiske kerne, skjult under stofbrug og kriminalitet, og som en person, der skal skabes gennem faste strukturer og positive sociale relationer med fokus på ligeværd og respekt. De forskellige personopfattelser bør derfor snarere ses som sameksisterende end gensidigt udelukkende. Søgeord: stofbehandling, fængsler, personopfattelse, Danmark, misbrug &nbsp

Stofbehandling og nye institutionelle identiteter i danske fængsler

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Insufficient access to harm reduction measures in prisons in 5 countries (PRIDE Europe): a shared European public health concern

Background: Prisoners constitute a high-risk population, particularly for infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to estimate the level of infectious risk in the prisons of five different European countries by measuring to what extent the prison system adheres to WHO/UNODC recommendations. Methods: Following the methodology used in a previous French survey, a postal/electronic questionnaire was sent to all prisons in Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Italy to collect data on the availability of several recommended HIV-HCV prevention interventions and HBV vaccination for prisoners. A score was built to compare adherence to WHO/UNODC recommendations (considered a proxy of environmental infectious risk) in those 4 countries. It ranged from 0 (no adherence) to 12 (full adherence). A second score (0 to 9) was built to include data from a previous French survey, thereby creating a 5-country comparison. Results: A majority of prisons answered in Austria (100 %), France (66 %) and Denmark (58 %), half in Belgium (50 %) and few in Italy (17 %), representing 100, 74, 89, 47 and 23 % coverage of the prison populations, respectively. Availability of prevention measures was low, with median adherence scores ranging from 3.5 to 4.5 at the national level. These results were confirmed when using the second score which included France in the inter-country comparison. Overall, the adherence score was inversely associated with prison overpopulation rates (p = 0.08). Conclusions: Using a score of adherence to WHO/UNODC recommendations, the estimated environmental infectious risk remains extremely high in the prisons of the 5 European countries assessed. Public health strategies should be adjusted to comply with the principle of equivalence of care and prevention with the general community

Suspected or protected? Perceptions of procedural justice in ethnic minority youth's descriptions of police relations

Research has highlighted the harmful effects of targeted police practices and the subsequent low trust in the police among ethnic minorities. However in spite of this research, there still exists a relative lack of knowledge on the day-to-day relations between ethnic minority youth and the police and on the perceptions that ethnic minorities have of procedural justice. Furthermore, comparative and cross-nation research is needed. This study, using data from 121 in-depth interviews, investigates how ethnic minority youth living in Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden describe policing practices. Our findings indicate that descriptions were quite similar in each of the four Nordic countries. While on the one hand, ethnic minority youth felt suspected by the police for no justifiable reason, thereby creating strong feelings of procedural injustice and unfairness, on the other hand, they described encounters, where they felt protected by the police and in general trusted the institution of the police. As such ambiguity has often been neglected, this article highlights the positive perceptions of the police but also argues that targeted police practices can undermine notions of procedural justice, trust in policing and a sense of belonging.</p