La guerre des drogues

Challenging Punishment: The War on Drugs, Race, and Public Health

Donna Murch, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University ; Samuel Roberts, PhD, Associate Professor of History (Columbia University) and Sociomedical Sciences (Mailman School of Public Health)

***Please submit a detailed one to two page abstract which outlines research methods, sources, analytic framework as well as a one page bibliography to challengingpunishment@gmail.com by SEPTEMBER 1, 2012.***

This announcement describes a Call for Papers (CFP) for historical essays dealing with aspects of the U.S. War on Drugs, WWII to the present. Ultimately, these pre-circulated papers will be presented and workshopped at a two-part symposium to be held at Rutgers University (April 5-6, 2013) and Columbia University (October 4, 2013).  Most or all of the selected essays will be published in an edited volume or journal special edition.  Essay topics may include any of the following:  

*        Licit and Illicit drugs in political, social, cultural, and economic context (formal and informal economy): the production,  distribution, use, and regulation of controlled substances and pharmaceuticals
*        power and inequality: race, place, class, gender, sexuality, citizenship status and indigeneity
*        public health, medicine, and the therapeutic state (mental health, harm reduction/minimization)
*        surveillance, screening, testing (in public health, police, employment, social policy, etc)
*        criminal justice (policing and criminalization, carceral state, drug courts, alternatives to incarceration and sentencing practices)
*        institutions; social policy and practices; (dis)incentives
*        social and professional movements, "community-based," and grassroots response
*        youth culture, street organizations, "gangs," racketeering, organized crime, and underground economies
*        history and critical analysis of addiction and recovery (psychiatry, neuroscience, psychology, social epidemiology)
*        contemporary and historical pathways to recovery (maintenance programs, support groups, counseling, therapeutic communities)
*        Cold War, foreign policy, drug interdiction and transnational networks
*        culture, aesthetics, media, and the politics of representation


While essays should be historical, they need not be authored by professionally trained historians. Indeed, essays from all disciplines (including history of science, Science and Technology Studies (STS), anthropology, sociology, policy analysis, political science, philosophy, medicine, public health, criminology, epidemiology, etc.) are welcome. For example, a researcher in health policy may want to submit an essay on the history of the implementation of positive incentives for drug use cessation (such as monetary payment, free treatment, etc.). Please submit a detailed one to two page abstract which outlines research methods, sources, analytic framework as well as a one page bibliography tochallengingpunishment@gmail.com by SEPTEMBER 1, 2012.