Sites of resistance’: an online ethnography of harm reduction work in community drug treatment services

PhD Thesis


Phillips, A. 2024. Sites of resistance’: an online ethnography of harm reduction work in community drug treatment services. PhD Thesis Canterbury Christ Church University School of Allied and Public Health Professions
AuthorsPhillips, A.
TypePhD Thesis
Qualification nameDoctor of Philosophy by Research
Abstract

This PhD thesis is an online ethnography that examines how harm reduction activists within community drug treatment services negotiate the ideological tension posed when practising harm reduction work within in an institutional environment driven by the ‘drug-free world ideology’. The research is interdisciplinary, drawing on the fields of critical drug studies, sociology, social psychology, public health, media and cultural studies, anthropology, spatial geography, and the health professions. The research process is located within my prior experience as a harm reduction practitioner, positioning me as ‘partial insider’; a reflexive approach is adopted throughout. Eighteen participants were recruited from the online ‘Harm Reduction Activists’ Forum’ consisting of practitioners, service users, people with lived experience of drug use, and political advocates for harm reduction. Fieldwork was conducted between October 2020 and November 2022, during the period of social restrictions that were necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The data consisted of in-depth, online, one-to-one conversational interviews and ongoing communication exchanges between researcher and participants through Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and email. Additionally, the data took the form of gifts of digital artefacts such as email strings, reports, and journal articles, examples of ‘online pocket ethnography’. The data suggests that working spaces, cultures and practices within community drug treatment systems are constructed around the drug-free world ideology. Within these systems, individuals adopt combinations of approaches over time to manage the tension between ideology and practice: compliance, everyday resistance, and harm reduction activism. These findings offer authentic insights into the relationship between structural, oppressive power and everyday practices of compliance and resistance within this healthcare context; thus, the thesis aims to bridge structuralist ‘macro’ with symbolic interactionist ‘micro’ theoretical perspectives. The thesis also offers an example of how the method of online ethnography can be utilised to examine harm reduction activism.

KeywordsCommunity drug treatment services; Harm reduction work
Year2024
File
File Access Level
Open
Publication process dates
Deposited30 Jul 2024
Permalink -

https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk/item/9885q/sites-of-resistance-an-online-ethnography-of-harm-reduction-work-in-community-drug-treatment-services

Download files


File
PhD thesis FINAL VERSION.pdf
File access level: Open

  • 62
    total views
  • 194
    total downloads
  • 3
    views this month
  • 8
    downloads this month

Export as

Related outputs

‘Care-less whispers’ in the academy during COVID-19: A feminist collaborative autoethnography
Stone, P., Phillips, A. and Jordan-Daus, K. 2021. ‘Care-less whispers’ in the academy during COVID-19: A feminist collaborative autoethnography . Prism. https://doi.org/10.24377/prism.ljmu.0402213
Health promotion in emergency care: rationale, strategies and activities.
Phillips, Adele and Laslett, Sarah 2021. Health promotion in emergency care: rationale, strategies and activities. Emergency Nurse : The Journal of the RCN Accident and Emergency Nursing Association. https://doi.org/10.7748/en.2021.e2103
Community nurses’ support for patients with fibromyalgia who use cannabis to manage pain
Phillips, A. and Andrews, N. 2021. Community nurses’ support for patients with fibromyalgia who use cannabis to manage pain. British Journal of Community Nursing. 26 (2), pp. 92-98. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjcn.2021.26.2.92
Effective approaches to health promotion in nursing practice
Phillips, A. 2019. Effective approaches to health promotion in nursing practice. Nursing Standard. https://doi.org/10.7748/ns.2019.e11312
Supporting smoking cessation in older patients: a continuing challenge for community nurses
Phillips, A. 2016. Supporting smoking cessation in older patients: a continuing challenge for community nurses. British Journal of Community Nursing. 21 (9), pp. 457-461. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjcn.2016.21.9.457
Smoking cessation aids and the primary care nurse
Phillips, A. 2015. Smoking cessation aids and the primary care nurse. Nursing in Practice. 86, pp. 37-41.
One too many: alcohol consumption and the health risks
Phillips, A. 2014. One too many: alcohol consumption and the health risks. Nursing & Residential Care. 16 (4), pp. 206-209. https://doi.org/10.12968/nrec.2014.16.4.206
Smoking cessation: promoting the health of older people who smoke
Phillips, A. 2013. Smoking cessation: promoting the health of older people who smoke. British Journal of Community Nursing. 17 (12), pp. 606-611. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjcn.2012.17.12.606
Power can increase stereotyping: Evidence from managers and subordinates in the hotel industry
Phillips, A. J. and Guinote, A. 2010. Power can increase stereotyping: Evidence from managers and subordinates in the hotel industry. Social Psychology. 41 (1), pp. 3-9. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000002