Year of Award
2010
Document Type
Thesis - Campus Access Only
Degree Type
Master of Arts (MA)
Degree Name
Anthropology
Department or School/College
Department of Anthropology
Committee Chair
Gilbert Quintero
Commitee Members
Kimber Haddix McKay, Teresa Sobieszczyk
Keywords
Actor Network Theory, Non-Medical Prescription Drug Use, Pleasure
Abstract
Much of the epidemiological research conducted on non-medical prescription drug use assumes pharmaceuticals to have fixed, inherent euphorigenic qualities. Quantitative analysis of substance abuse depends on drugs acting predictably. However, this conception of pharmaceuticals has failed to account for the absence of pleasure when prescription drugs are taken as part of corrective or curative regimes. For this thesis I will employ Actor Network Theory (ANT) to explain how a prescription drug can emerge alternately as a substance either amenable to, or unresponsive in, producing pleasure. ANT suggests that the properties attributed to prescription drugs are not deterministic or unimpeachable, but are instead a result of networks of heterogeneous actants. Using interview data collected among young adults about their early non-prescribed pharmaceutical episodes, and comparing these experiences to those of accomplished users, I will illustrate how, during initial periods of transparent indeterminacy, pharmaceutical affects are not discovered, but rather are constructed and enacted through actant relationships.
Recommended Citation
Bundy, Henry Erikson, "Klonopin Collectifs, the “Charms” of Diverted Pharmaceuticals and Other Pleasures of Non-Medical Prescription Drug Use" (2010). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 606.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/606
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© Copyright 2010 Henry Erikson Bundy