Harm reduction as anarchist practice : a user’s guide to capitalism and addiction in North America

In spite of its origins as an illegal, clandestine, grassroots activity that took place either outside or in defiant opposition to state and legal authority, there is growing evidence to suggest that harm reduction in North America has become sanitized and depoliticized in its institutionalization as public health policy. Harm reduction remains the most contested and controversial aspect of drug policy on both sides of the Canada–US border, yet the institutionalization of harm reduction in each national context demonstrates a series of stark contrasts. Drawing from regional case study examples in Canada and the US, this article historically traces and politically re-maps the uneasy relationship between the autonomous political origins of harm reduction, contemporary public health policy, and the adoption of the biomedical model for addiction research and treatment in North America. Situated within a broader theoretical interrogation of the etiology of addiction, this study culminates in a politically engaged critique of traditional addiction research and drug/service user autonomy. Arguing that the founding philosophy and spirit of the harm reduction movement represents a fundamentally anarchist-inspired form of practice, this article concludes by considering tactics for reclaiming and re-politicizing the future of harm reduction in North America.

Towards a socioanalysis of money, finance and capitalism : beneath the surface of the finance industry

Book launch speech 28 March 2012, Melbourne

Movement patterns of green turtles in Brazilian coastal waters described by satellite tracking and flipper tagging

The movements of 8 green turtles Chelonia mydas in Brazilian coastal waters were tracked using transmitters linked to the Argos system for periods of between 1 and 197 d. These were the first tracking data gathered on juveniles of this species in this important foraging ground. Information was integrated with that collected over a decade using traditional flipper-tagging methods at the same site. Both satellite telemetry and flipper tagging suggested that turtles undertook 1 of 3 general patterns of behaviour: pronounced long range movements (>100 km), moderate range movements (<100 km) or extended residence very close to the capture/release site. There seemed to be a general tendency for the turtles recaptured/tracked further afield to have been among the larger turtles captured. Satellite tracking of 5 turtles which moved from the release site showed that they moved through coastal waters; a factor which is likely to predispose migrating turtles to incidental capture as a result of the prevailing fishing methods in the region. The movements of the 3 turtles who travelled less than 100 km from the release site challenge previous ideas relating to home range in green turtles feeding in sea grass pastures. We hypothesise that there may be a fundamental difference in the pattern of habitat utilisation by larger green turtles depending on whether they are feeding on seagrass or macroalgae. Extended tracking of 2 small turtles which stayed near the release point showed that small juvenile turtles, whilst in residence in a particular feeding ground, can also exhibit high levels of site-fidelity with home ranges of the order of several square kilometers.

Construction and regulation of “dangerous consumptions” : re-regulating state casino capitalism - an Australian regulatory case study

This paper explores insights into the regulatory state and state capitalism through the lens of how states construct and regulate markets in the area of ‘dangerous consumptions’, in particular, land-based casino gambling. It focuses on what is needed for public interest regulation; with a focus on consumer protection and harm prevention. Gambling constitutes a site of explicit state regulation as the state decides and negotiates license-to-operate conditions along with the degree of significance accorded to impact/harm, regulatory monitoring and enforcement, harm prevention and state/operator duty of care...

Student Dis/satisfaction and Academic Dis/enchantment with Edu-capitalism

Over three decades there has been a shift from ideologies of idealism and educationalism towards instrumentalism in higher education due to the global circulation of neoliberal ideologies. Facilitated by digital technologies and encouraged by international ranking systems, there is a paradoxical trend towards homogenisation rather than heterogeneity in terms of what counts as valued knowledge, producing tensions in national policies, institutional responses and academic work in Australia as elsewhere. The paper identifies the implications of trends driving universities towards entrepreneurialism, hyper-instrumentalism, continual rebranding in their search for distinctiveness in global markets, restructuring towards specialisation, focusing on immediate use-value of research, vocationalising teaching, demand driven curriculum that makes students happy, and the disaggregation of curriculum underpinning new multimodal forms of online learning / management technologies.

Age, class and race discrimination: their interactions and associations with mental health among Brazilian university students

Although research on discrimination and health has progressed significantly, it has tended to focus on racial discrimination and US populations. This study explored different types of discrimination, their interactions and associations with common mental disorders among Brazilian university students, in Rio de Janeiro in 2010. Associations between discrimination and common mental disorders were examined using multiple logistic regression models, adjusted for confounders. Interactions between discrimination and socio-demographics were tested. Discrimination attributed to age, class and skin color/race were the most frequently reported. In a fully adjusted model, discrimination attributed to skin color/race and class were both independently associated with increased odds of common mental disorders. The simultaneous reporting of skin color/race, class and age discrimination was associated with the highest odds ratio. No significant interactions were found. Skin color/race and class discrimination were important, but their simultaneous reporting, in conjunction with age discrimination, were associated with the highest occurrence of common mental disorders.

Transferring 'Yellow River capitalism' to Africa and its implications

This chapter reviews the extent to which China has involved in Africa in recent years. The economic, social and political implications from a macro perspective are analysed. Several international managerial challenges for Chinese enterprises operating in Africa at the micro-level are outlined.

Having sex with capitalism: parodic in-citation in the prose poem sequence

In his Spleen de Paris or Petits poèmes en prose [Little Prose Poems] Baudelaire (1869) forges an instrument of supple and radical potential, declaring the prose poem a ‘dangerous’ hybrid, which he wills elastic enough and staccato enough, to register the flows, jolts and distractions for the flâneur in the increasingly industrialised Paris. Here,by the mid-19th century, plate glass and gas lighting enable conspicuous consumption. Itis most strikingly the romantic-erotic and the relation between poet and his delicious, execrable wife, his inescapable, pitiless Muse (Baudelaire 1989: 177] that provides the nexus for radical questioning of the whole socio-political economy. Departing from Johnson’s Défigurations (1979) and using Irigaray’s (1984) hypothesis that the economy of sexual difference is the founding trope for the discursive and thus political economy of differences – of culture, ethnicity and class – this article first looks at theway Baudelaire activates the heterosexual relation as a site for social critique. It examines how Perec continues Baudelaire’s prose poetry experiment, offering, pre-May 1968, a revolutionary critique of desire by exploiting formal constraints to deconstruct still further the consumer subject of capitalism. It then investigates Brossard’s ‘hologrammatic’ challenge (1991) to patriarchal regimes of representation and the forms of desire they outlaw. Finally, it suggests how new work by Walwicz (2015)develops and displaces this radical inheritance.

The G20’s role in legitimating global capitalism: beyond crisis diplomacy?

The rising profile of the G20 in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis has led to various forms of concern about the legitimacy of this forum. While debates about the legitimacy of the G20 are important and ongoing, they overlook the important observation that the G20 is also attempting to perform a key role in legitimating global capitalism. This role of legitimating global capitalism emphasises the importance of the G20 to act, and be seen to act, to normalise global capitalism, to strengthen global economic governance, and also facilitate a political consensus with regard to key policy issues. This essay critically examines the role that the G20 plays in legitimating global capitalism and contends that the G20 is not just a technical forum of international policy-making but also a political forum for creating and performing visible responses to problems which are seen to be socially responsive.