After reading Garcia’s ethnography, I’m most interested in her pastoral framework and how it contextualizes heroin use in New Mexico’s Española Valley. Rather than using an isolationist approach that confines personal histories of addiction to an individual’s psychology, the pastoral is able to address the historical and current forces that facilitate an environment conducive to individuals’ drug addiction. Garcia also touches on the stigma of drug addiction and its role in inhibiting access to care. I believe that the words of one of her interviewees speaks to the embodiment of this stigma, she notes, “Their addiction, they said, was in the blood, like a virus, something they could not eradicate or recover from, even if they wanted to” (202). I think that preconceptions and even misconceptions concerning addiction on the behalf of healthcare professionals plays into and solidifies addicts’ diminished self worth and growing helplessness. This also gets at issues concerning dependency, so I’d like to ask: When do those suffering from addiction get to occupy the sick role, if at all?
^oops sent that one a bit too early on accident haha.
Continued:
Because of this, I think exploring who gets to be seen as undeserving of their status as homeless or a victim of their situations in a similar way to how Garcia looks at addiction could add something really interesting to your work. Both situations carry large stigmas within our society and can sometimes go hand in hand so I wonder if this framework from Garcia could help out with your work?
Hi Eric,
I’m really glad that you asked this question because it was also something that stuck out to me from the reading. As you mentioned, there is a huge stigma surrounding those struggling with addiction within our society, and Garcia’s ethnography definitely helps its readers to better understand why addicts should be treated with the respect and human dignity that they deserve as people. For me, this also reminded me of discussions that I had while taking a sociology class that look at the politics of blame that exist during pandemics and epidemics. Even though there has been proven information that shows that oftentimes those who become addicts are not entirely to blame for their addiction, they are those who take the majority of the blame. In my opinion, I would say that those suffering from addiction only get to occupy the sick role when they have something else that is seen as desirable within our society that affords them more privilege and generates more empathy for them because their addiction is seen as completely contrary to other aspects of their lives. This is something that you can see in different movies and tv shows that somewhat glamorize addiction because these main characters are usually attractive or rich or have some other aspect of their lives that gives them privilege.
Furthermore, I know that the research project you’re working on for this class is about homelessness in Nashville and I think that this question is also something that can be discussed through your research. In high school, I did some work with organizations supporting the homeless population in my hometown and one of the biggest requests that they had for us was to look into our biases against homeless people and be more empathetic to their situations, because at the end of the day you never know if you’ll be in their same position someday. Our society tends to place the burden of responsibility of homelessness on the individuals themselves who are experiencing it, creating narratives that they’re lazy or need to pull themselves up from poverty from their bootstraps.