To Be Free And Normal: Addiction, Governance, And The Therapeutics Of Buprenorphine
Keywords
Buprenorphine; Drug treatment; Freedom; Governance; Normalcy
Abstract
Methadone maintenance has dominated opiate addiction treatment in the United States for decades. Since 2002, opiate addiction has also been treated in general medical settings with a substance called buprenorphine. Based on interviews and participant observation conducted in northern California, this article analyzes how discourses of freedom and normalcy in patient and provider narratives reflect and affect experiences with this treatment modality. I discuss how buprenorphine treatment, in contrast to methadone maintenance, offers patients and providers a greater sense of autonomy and flexibility in how they receive and deliver treatment. It presents them with new obligations, responsibilities, and choices around care and conduct. It simultaneously perpetuates and shapes a desire to be "free" and "normal." I argue that the therapeutics of buprenorphine govern patients and providers through this desire for freedom and normalcy. Buprenorphine is thus a technology of governmentality that extends neoliberal discourses and values and produces self-governing subjects.
Publication Date
12-1-2015
Publication Title
Medical Anthropology Quarterly
Volume
29
Issue
4
Number of Pages
512-530
Document Type
Article
Personal Identifier
scopus
DOI Link
https://doi.org/10.1111/maq.12232
Copyright Status
Unknown
Socpus ID
84955204897 (Scopus)
Source API URL
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84955204897
STARS Citation
Harris, Shana, "To Be Free And Normal: Addiction, Governance, And The Therapeutics Of Buprenorphine" (2015). Scopus Export 2015-2019. 951.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/scopus2015/951