What are mandated medico-legal interventions and how can they affect people diagnosed as alcohol or other drug dependent? SSAC adjunct Dr Kate Seear addressed these questions recently in a presentation that formed part of a group of events on mandated medico-legal interventions in Australia. The events were part of a program of work being undertaken by…
Program now available for this event. Since it began in 2013 SSAC has conducted research on a wide range of topics including Australian, Canadian and Swedish alcohol and other drug policy, personal experiences of addiction in Australia, addiction concepts on Twitter, legal interpretations of addiction, the Victorian drug court, compulsory drug treatment in China, and young people in…
A groundbreaking new website was launched in Melbourne on Friday the 7th of October with the help of writer Kate Holden and harm reduction pioneer Jenny Kelsall. Lives of Substance is Australia’s first dedicated website presenting carefully researched personal stories of alcohol or other drug addiction, dependence or habit. Based on an innovative ARC-funded project, the website’s aim is to generate and present much-needed new…
SSAC’s purpose is to study, map and monitor ideas of addiction, seeking to illuminate the ways the ‘problem of addiction’ itself is constituted and operationalised in Australian society, culture and politics. Recently, SSAC researchers Dr Robyn Dwyer and Professor Suzanne Fraser began analysing the addiction concepts circulating throughout the social media platform, Twitter. As lead investigator…
In 2014 Curtin University’s Social Studies of Addiction Concepts (SSAC) research team began work on an innovative project that would underpin Australia’s first dedicated web site presenting personal experiences of people who consider themselves to have an alcohol or other drug addiction, dependence or habit. The groundbreaking Lives of Substance website offers new perspectives on…
In Australia and around the world addiction is defined and rendered measurable with the use of standardised addiction screening and diagnostic questionnaires or ‘tools’. Wherever statements are made about addiction, its effects and appropriate remedies, these tools have played a key part. In 2015, SSAC researchers Dr Robyn Dwyer and Professor Suzanne Fraser began analysing these tools…
Dr Kate Seear, adjunct research fellow with SSAC and Senior Lecturer in Law at Monash University, was recently awarded a prestigious DECRA fellowship by the Australian Research Council. The fellowship will support Kate to conduct a major international study on addiction and the law over the next three years (2016-18). Entitled ‘Addiction in the Australian…
Showcased recently at the 2015 Australian Community Support Organisation (ACSO) international criminal justice conference, the work of SSAC PhD Student, Eliana Sarmiento focuses on the role of drug treatment courts in defining addiction and shaping lives. Held in Melbourne in October, the conference was organised around the thematic question, ‘do prisons change lives?’ Eliana’s project…
Following successful data collection in Melbourne, Bendigo and Sydney, SSAC research project ‘Experiences of addiction, treatment and recovery’ is now entering its final phase of interviewing, this time in the New South Wales Northern Rivers region. Research associate Dr Kiran Pienaar has commenced interviewing in Byron Bay, and plans to collect data across the region,…
China’s compulsory drug detention centres attract international criticism for human right violations. As such they are a key site of contestation between China’s government and Western human rights advocacy organisations. The issue is framed as a contest between ‘health’ and ‘criminalisation’ models in which a central organising concept is that of addiction. SSAC MPhil student Judy Chang…
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