Games of Truth: Rethinking Conformity and Resistance in Narratives of Heroin Recovery

Author: NING, ANA

Source: Medical Anthropology, Volume 24, Number 4, October-December 2005 , pp. 349-382(34)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

Conventional paradigms of drug treatment present addicts as liars, fabricators, and manipulators until they are truly involved in their recovery process. My ethnographic study engages with and expands upon Foucault's (1988) concept of “games of truth” and De Certeau's (1984) work on “strategies” and “tactics” to illuminate complex and shifting relations between and among staff and clients in a methadone clinic in Toronto, Canada. I suggest the notion of “complicity” in order to address radical instability in these relationships, and I also question commonly held binaries, such as truth and lies, enunciation and action, domination and resistance, that underlie theoretical and addiction treatment realms. In this process, I contribute not only to anthropological theorizing but also to policy making. The staff and clients' multifaceted interpretations of heroin recovery question a single standard of “successful” treatment and point to the need for broader social interventions to address the diverse needs of heroin users.

Keywords: “Games of truth”; complicity; staff and clients; methadone; Toronto; addiction; intravenous drug users

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01459740500334649

Publication date: 2005-10-01