As we come to the close of 2019, the SSAC team are busy finalising the major outputs of our ARC discovery project on men’s use of performance and image-enhancing drugs.

Our recently completed technical report details the study’s findings on key themes, such as experiences of consumption, injecting practices and hepatitis C knowledge, and, where appropriate, makes recommendations for improving policy and service provision.

To mark the launch of our technical report, we are holding a half-day forum of social science research and practitioner and consumer feedback exploring the nature and politics of ‘enhancement’ as it relates to drug consumption practices, gender and sexuality.  The forum will include scholars working in sociology, critical drugs studies, gender, sexuality and trans studies and health professionals and practitioners. It will present innovative research that contributes to current debates and research agendas on performance and image-enhancing drugs, pharmaceutical markets and lifestyle practices, the constitution of gendered and sexual identities and harm reduction.

The forum will also involve a discussion of the implications of the research findings and recommendations, and will invite thoughts on how new perspectives on enhancement might inform future research and professional engagement with consumers.

Speakers include: Professor Suzanne Fraser (ARCSHS, La Trobe), A/Prof Kate Seear, Dr Dean Murphy (University of Sydney), Dr Kiran Pienaar (Monash University), Dr Karla Elliot (The University of Melbourne), Dr J. R. Latham (Deakin University), Dr Renae Fomiatti (ARCSHS, La Trobe), Dr Beng Eu (Prahran Market Clinic) and Kay Stanton (Your Community Health).

We invite researchers and professionals working in policy, health and consumer advocacy to attend.

Details

Where: Teaching room 2, 360 Collins Street, Melbourne

When: Friday 25^th October 1 – 5pm

Presented by: The Drugs, Gender and Sexuality Program and The BBV Program, ARCSHS

RSVP: here

The project has already produced a range of scholarly and public presentations. Key publications so far are:

Fomiatti, R., Fraser, S., Latham, J., Moore, D., Seear K. & Aitken, C. Messengers of Sex? Making testosterone matter in motivations of anabolic-androgenic steroid injecting. Health Sociology Review. In press.

Fraser, S., Moore, D., Fomiatti, R., Seear, K. & Aitken, C. Is another relationship possible? Connoisseurship and the doctor-patient relationship for men who consume performance and image-enhancing drugs. Social Science and Medicine. Under review.

Fomiatti, R., Lenton, E., Latham, J., Fraser, S., Moore, D., Seear, K. & Aitken, C. Maintaining the healthy body: Blood management and hepatitis C prevention among men who injecting performance and image-enhancing drugs. International Journal of Drug Policy. Under review

Latham, J.R., Fraser, S., Fomiatti, R., Moore, D., Seear K. & Aitken, C. (2019). Working out in makeover culture: Men’s Performance and image-enhancing drug use as self-transformation. Australian Feminist Studies, 34(100), 149-164

Moore, D., Hart, A., Fraser, S. & Seear, K. (2019). Masculinities, practices and meanings: A critical review of recent literature on the use of performance and image-enhancing drugs among men. Health.

Hart, A. (2018). Making a difference? Applying Vitellone’s Social Science of the Syringe to performance and image enhancing drug injecting. International Journal of Drug Policy, 61, 69-73.

Fomiatti, R., Lenton, E. & Fraser, S. (2018). Summary Report: Fit for Purpose: The legal, medical and social barriers and enablers to PIED injecting. Melbourne, Australia.