Symposium: The ethics of researching people engaged in illegal activities

SSAC Research Fellow, Dr Robyn Dwyer, recently presented at an important symposium on Research Ethics in Vulnerable Populations. The symposium examined and analysed ethical issues related to research in certain vulnerable populations, including women affected by intimate partner violence; prisoners; people who inject drugs; sex workers; and men who have sex with men. Sessions included…

Report on SSAC’s recent research forum out now

SSAC ‘s recent research engagement event generated a host of useful and inspiring insights, comments and suggestions. A report summarising the key points raised in the presentations, panel discussion and group consultations is now available. The report also details the projects discussed, panellists who took part and the day’s proceedings. Background to the report Over the last year the…

SSAC research becomes art

A new collaboration between SSAC researcher Suzanne Fraser and Melbourne sound and video artist John Jacobs recently put research ideas about addiction into art via a video installation for the 2014 Gertrude St Projection Festival. Shown in the front window of the SSAC offices within Curtin University’s National Drug Research Institute Melbourne office, the piece, entitled addiction, habit,…

Habits: Remaking Addiction

Launch of new book on addiction

What is ‘addiction’? What does it say about us, our social arrangements and our political preoccupations? How are ideas about and responses to addiction changing, and what is at stake in these developments? These are the questions new book Habits: Remaking addiction seeks to answer. Using Science and Technology Studies theory and an impressive range of international…

Vancouver addiction colloquium

Held on day one (June 11, 2014) of the ISSA conference in Vancouver, Canada, SSAC’s interdisciplinary colloquium, ‘New social studies of addiction’, showcased Australian research on addiction. Recent changes to the substance use entries in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and the rise of neuroscience have introduced new debates into the addiction field. In…

Habits: Remaking Addiction

New book – order now

What is ‘addiction’? What does it say about us, our social arrangements and our political preoccupations? How are ideas about and responses to addiction changing and what is at stake in these changes? These are some of the questions the authors of this book, Suzanne Fraser, David Moore and Helen Keane, aim to answer. Using Science and Technology…

Study with SSAC: scholarship

Are you interested in studying addiction from a social science point of view? The Social Studies of Addiction Concepts Research program (SSAC) invites expressions of interest from suitably qualified candidates for a PhD scholarship in qualitative research on addiction. The scholarship will be based in Melbourne, Australia. The scholarship will carry an annual tax-free stipend…

SSAC launches its new website and logo

Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Associate Professor Suzanne Fraser, leader of the Social Studies of Addiction Concepts (SSAC) program at Australia’s National Drug Research Institute (NDRI) today launched the program’s new logo and website. Speaking from NDRI’s office in Melbourne, Australia, Fraser explained that the SSAC program was designed as a new global initiative to connect addiction…

New study: Experiences of addiction

A team of researchers led by SSAC’s Associate Professor Suzanne Fraser has been awarded $499,000 by the Australian Research Council to conduct research into lived experiences of addiction in Australia. This project, entitled ‘Experiences of addiction, treatment and recovery: An online resource for members of the public, health professionals and policy makers’, is the first…

Addiction in the non-criminal law: Dr Kate Seear presents recent work

SSAC research fellow Dr Kate Seear presented a paper at the Biopolitics of Science and Medicine Symposium, held on Friday November 29th 2013 at Monash University’s Caulfield Campus. Dr Seear presented findings from a new national pilot study (being undertaken in conjunction with Associate Professor Suzanne Fraser) that explores legal approaches to addiction, especially those…