Pleasure Consuming Medicine: The Queer Politics of Drugs

ISBN-10: 0822390884
ISBN-13: 9780822390886
Category: Medical
Pages: 278
Language: English
Published: 2009-06-26
Publisher: Duke University Press
Author: Kane Race

Description

On a summer night in 2007, the Azure Party, part of Sydney’s annual gay and lesbian Mardi Gras, is underway. Alongside the party outfits, drugs, lights, and DJs is a volunteer care team trained to deal with the drug-related emergencies that occasionally occur. But when police appear at the gates with drug-detecting dogs, mild panic ensues. Some patrons down all their drugs, heightening their risk of overdose. Others try their luck at the gates. After twenty-six attendees are arrested with small quantities of illicit substances, the party is shut down and the remaining partygoers disperse into the city streets. For Kane Race, the Azure Party drug search is emblematic of a broader technology of power that converges on embodiment, consumption, and pleasure in the name of health. In Pleasure Consuming Medicine, he illuminates the symbolic role that the illicit drug user fulfills for the neoliberal state. As he demonstrates, the state’s performance of moral sovereignty around substances designated “illicit” bears little relation to the actual dangers of drug consumption; in fact, it exacerbates those dangers. Race does not suggest that drug use is risk-free, good, or bad, but rather that the regulation of drugs has become a site where ideological lessons about the propriety of consumption are propounded. He argues that official discourses about drug use conjure a space where the neoliberal state can be seen to be policing the “excesses” of the amoral market. He explores this normative investment in drug regimes and some “counterpublic health” measures that have emerged in response. These measures, which Race finds in certain pragmatic gay men’s health and HIV prevention practices, are not cloaked in moralistic language, and they do not cast health as antithetical to pleasure.

Get the book

Similar books

How Institutions are Shaping the Future of Our Children: For Better or for Worse?
By Catherine Dulmus, Karen Sowers
Lammert, M., & Timberlake, E. M. (1986). Termination of foster care for the older adolescent: Issues of emancipation and individuation.
Reversibility of Chronic Disease and Hypersensitivity, Volume 5: Treatment Options of Chemical Sensitivity
By William J. Rea, Kalpana D. Patel
Dou, L., E. Bertrand, C. Cerini, V. Faure, J. Sampol, R. Vanholder, Y. Berland, P. Brunet. ... A. Timberlake, B. Sumpio, R. Pfragner, I. M. Modlin, M. Kidd.
Rockwood and Green's Fractures in Adults
By William Ricci, Charles M. Court-Brown, Margaret M. McQueen
Chendrasekhar A, Moorman DW, Timberlake GA. An evaluation of the effects of ... Chittiboina P, Wylen E, Ogden A, et al. Traumatic spondylolisthesis of the ...
Breast Pathology, An Issue of Surgical Pathology Clinics
By Laura C. Collins
Hartmann LC, Radisky DC, Frost MH, et al. Understanding the premalignant potential of ... D'Alfonso TM, Wang K, Chiu YL, et al. Pathologic upgrade rates on ...
Telepractice in Speech-Language Pathology
By K. Todd Houston
Stensland, J., Speedie, S., Ideker, M., House, J., & Thompson, T. (1999). The relative cost of outpatient ... Deal, J. L. (1987). Appraisal and diagnosis of ...
Addressing Adversity: Prioritising adversity and trauma-informed care for children and young people in England.
By Marc Bush, Lord Victor Adebowale, Rebecca Adlington
1 2 Howard, S. and Johnson, B. (2000) Resilient and Non-resilient Behaviour in ... 4 De Haan, L., Hawley, D. and Deal, J. (2002) 'Operationalizing family ...
Culture, Brain, and Analgesia: Understanding and Managing Pain in Diverse Populations
By Mario Incayawar, Knox H. Todd
... are not fluent in the language/s of the medical care provider.72 Research ... Anglo-Americans have traditionally placed a great deal of emphasis on the ...
Image-Guided Spine Interventions
By John M. Mathis
This practical guide thoroughly discusses both well-established and new interventions that are applied to the spine for the purpose of pain relief.
New Mynursinglab -- Access Card -- For Maternal-Child Nursing (24-Month Access)
By Pearson Education, Pearson Education, Inc., David P Pearson Education
Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable.
Pearson's Medical Assisting (General)
By Pearson Education Staff, Madan Dr Pearson Education
If a picture paints a thousand words, imagine what video can do? Pearson Medical Assisting Videos help users learn the nuances and the details of many medical assisting procedures.