Spaces of abeyance, care and survival: the addiction treatment system as a site of ‘regulatory richness’

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Description/Abstract

This paper uses the changing landscape of the addiction treatment system as a way to understand broader trends in welfare state restructuring. Based on a case study of six detoxes in Winnipeg, Hamilton and Toronto (Canada), we seek to understand the degree to which the detox constitutes a space of care that reflects therapeutic aims of facility operators, a space of abeyance, control and containment for larger society, and a space of sustenance for individual clients. Further, we investigate how the shifting relationships between these roles provide insight into broader trends in the structuring and restructuring of the welfare state. Our empirical findings point to a multiple and reworked configuration within detox programs, while conceptually, our tripartite understanding of spaces of treatment serves to caution against totalizing accounts of current welfare state restructuring.