“Ensamblajes globales” y “reducción de daño”: apuntes en torno a la lucha antidroga y al movimiento antiprohibicionista

Abstract

Objective. To carry out a critical review of Zigon’s concepts of assembly and situation with the aim of showing its analytical possibilities to describe social actors and socio-technical networks (or points d'appui according to Foucault) that serve as symbolic and material support for the global phenomenon known as ‘prohibition’ or “war on drugs”. Methodology. Ethnography of anti-prohibitionist activism, including techniques of participant observation, interviews and archive. Results and conclusions. It is considered that this perspective can improve the understanding of the theoretical and political challenges of studying and participating in the anti-prohibitionist movement in Colombia. The text is divided into three sections: The first part arises from an ethnographic case to understand the challenges of thinking “drug policies” from alternative perspectives to the so-called ‘prohibitionism’, thus introducing the framework in which the concepts which will be studied later make sense. In the second part, both concepts are discussed together with some contemporary theorists who have critically used the discussions of the so-called “ontological turn” in anthropology. To conclude, in the third part, there is a reflection on the role of drug users in the production of academic knowledge and in the construction of new political arrangements to regulate the relationships between people and drugs.

Keywords:

ensamblaje

situación

reducción de daño

antiprohibicionismo

assemblage

situation

harm reduction

anti-prohibitionism

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