Addiction Trajectories

Reviews / Votes

"From an accomplished group of scholars come deeply instructive and timely accounts of the unseen of addiction's moral grip. Addiction Trajectories will be a standard-bearer in the new anthropology of addiction."-Adriana Petryna, coeditor of Global Pharmaceuticals: Ethics, Markets, Practices "The experience of addiction has given rise to a huge literature, divided between biomedical accounts on the one hand, and, on the other, personal narratives, often inspired by the Alcoholics Anonymous paradigm. Qualitative social research by anthropologists and sociologists has been scarce thus far, but this wonderful collection shows that larger social and cultural processes do much to shape experiences usually seen in terms of individual failings and heroisms. Eugene Raikhel and William Garriott have brought together analyses that respect the feelings and ideas of ordinary 'addicts' but that allow us to go beyond the Oprah Winfrey 'just do it' approach."-Mariana Valverde, author of Diseases of the Will: Alcohol and the Dilemmas of Freedom "I would highly recommend the book especially to readers within anthropology and other related disciplines, who are interested in addiction, diseases, illnesses, and also in organizing ideas of what it means to be human: these ideas assume specificity in different historical and spatial settings, as they are related to political and commercial histories of pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs and their translations and transformations." - Bjarke Nielsen (Ethnos) "Addiction Trajectories provides a creative blend of anthropology, neuroscience, psychiatry, and philosophy, and it does so through the engaging stories of individuals suffering from various addictions. . . . I found this book to be a refreshing perspective on the psychology, biology, and ethnography of addiction. This blending of disciplines serves as a powerful reminder to the medical community that addiction should not be overly biologized." - Dena Hurst (Metapsychology Online Reviews) "I found this a fascinating book... The chapters deconstructed all the usual notions one holds about addiction trajectories and opened up a myriad of trajectories of temporal, cultural and spatial dimensions." - Eilish Gilvarry (British Journal of Psychiatry) ". . . this volume reflects the heterogeneous richness of contemporary anthropology, with its openness to complementary disciplines. . . . there are many excellent chapters in the book. The introduction is a valuable guide for anyone grappling with the many contradictions within the addiction research literature, as it carefully parses out the complexity behind this term." - Sarah Mars (Medical Anthropology Quarterly) "Whereas many volumes will deal with addiction to only one class of substances or behaviours, Addiction Trajectories breaks away by discussing addiction to a wide range of illicit and legal substances, and even gambling. This book also does great credit to the field of medical anthropology by highlighting why a holistic, multi-layered perspective approach is important if health and wellbeing providers hope to understand, and thereby treat, addiction." - Kyle W. West (Centre for Medical Humanities) "I very much enjoyed reading this book, and would recommend it to qualitative researchers embarking on research in addiction, doctoral students and healthcare professionals working in the field of addiction but also more widely as engaging examples of ethnographic research which has been well conducted.... Addiction Trajectories was an easy and interesting read, covering a wide range of topics on addiction through a series of ethnographic case studies. The volume is a very welcome addition to the literature on addiction." - Aimee Grant (Sociology of Health & Illness) "Through the ten insightful studies included in Addiction Trajectories, the editors, Eugene (gambling, heroine, alcohol, methadone). Systematically addressing the emergence of 'addiction' as an object of knowledge, intervention and contention, and deeply interested in the impact of an increasing array of therapeutic technologies for target subjects themselves, they emphasize not only the heterogeneity of circumstances, but also the dynamic character of this phenomenon 'on the move'. As a result of their highly original proposal, the subject emerges as a telling example of the 'politics of life', proving a privileged site of anthropological analysis that combines individual experiences of desire, pleasure and suffering with expertise in medicine, psychotherapy, religion and the regulatory ambitions of the state." - Claudia Fonseca, Soraya Fleischer & Taniele Rui (Medical Anthropology) "This book has much to offer clinicians, researchers and policy makers, reminding us of the evolving nature of the concept of addiction, its multifaceted explanations and implications, and above all the importance of open minds when considering its management." - Edward Day (Drugs and Alcohol Today) "Addiction Trajectories is a highly relevant collection. . . . It will continue to be essential reading for anthropologists and others who are committed to rethinking addiction through immersed anthropological fieldwork and the other kinds of following that these contributors encourage us toward." - Danya Fast (American Ethnologist)