TY - JOUR
T1 - A hell of a life
T2 - Addiction and marginality in post-industrial detroit
AU - Draus, Paul J.
AU - Roddy, Juliette K.
AU - Greenwald, Mark
N1 - Funding Information:
A grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH R01 DA015462) and internal funding from the University of Michigan-Dearborn supported this research study. Lana Donelly, Trina Grant and Christina Gabrielli contributed to the analysis of data and the preparation of the manuscript. The views of the authors do not necessarily represent those of the funding agency.
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Drawing on concepts from Foucault and Agamben, we maintain that the lives of daily heroin users provide a prime illustration of bare life in the zone of indistinction that is contemporary Detroit. First, we consider the case of Detroit as a stigmatized and racially segregated city, with concrete consequences for its residents. We then present evidence from in-depth ethnographic and economic interviews to illustrate the various spaces of confinement-that of addiction, that of economic marginality, and that of gender-occupied by these men and women, as well as the indeterminacy of their daily lives, captured through their descriptions of daily routines and interactions. We examine their expressions of worth as expressed in economic, emotional and moral terms. Finally, we draw connections between the sustained marginality of these individuals, as a contemporary category of homo sacer, and the policies and powers that both despise and depend upon them. Heroin, we contend, helps to fill and numb this social void, making bare life bearable, but also cementing one's marginality into semi-permanence.
AB - Drawing on concepts from Foucault and Agamben, we maintain that the lives of daily heroin users provide a prime illustration of bare life in the zone of indistinction that is contemporary Detroit. First, we consider the case of Detroit as a stigmatized and racially segregated city, with concrete consequences for its residents. We then present evidence from in-depth ethnographic and economic interviews to illustrate the various spaces of confinement-that of addiction, that of economic marginality, and that of gender-occupied by these men and women, as well as the indeterminacy of their daily lives, captured through their descriptions of daily routines and interactions. We examine their expressions of worth as expressed in economic, emotional and moral terms. Finally, we draw connections between the sustained marginality of these individuals, as a contemporary category of homo sacer, and the policies and powers that both despise and depend upon them. Heroin, we contend, helps to fill and numb this social void, making bare life bearable, but also cementing one's marginality into semi-permanence.
KW - Bare life
KW - Biopolitics
KW - Detroit
KW - Heroin
KW - Marginality
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U2 - 10.1080/14649365.2010.508564
DO - 10.1080/14649365.2010.508564
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77956854224
SN - 1464-9365
VL - 11
SP - 663
EP - 680
JO - Social and Cultural Geography
JF - Social and Cultural Geography
IS - 7
ER -