El proceso de negociación

The methodology employed for the research was a two-pronged qualitative approach and comprised analysis of policy documents as well as in-depth interviews with key stakeholders who were members of the Australian ‘drug policy community’

(Fitzgerald and Sewards 2002). This dual approach was chosen in light of the critique by McKee (2009) that governmentality studies had a tendency to disregard empirical reality due to a focus on discourse as opposed to a ‘social realist’ approach to policy analysis. McKee perceived a tendency to focus primarily on government documents which has resulted in ‘a disconnection between the study of specific mentalities of rule and the social relations in which they are embedded’ (2009:473). She saw this as posing problems for understanding ‘the effects of power at the micro-level and the lived experience of subjection’ (2009:474). McKee proposed a strategy for

overcoming this was to adopt what she described as a ‘realist governmentality’ approach by ‘complementing discursive analysis of emergent governmentalities with localized empirical accounts of actual governing practices’ (2009:478). This involves using ethnographic approaches alongside analysis of government policy documents to show how policies actually play out in the real world. Such an approach illuminates ‘the contingent and particular national, sub-national and micro-level factors that may shape universalistic governmental rationalities’ (2009:480). It is with this in mind that I elected to incorporate a Critical Discourse Analysis approach of various government texts with an ethnographic study of members of partnerships involving people who

use illicit drugs in my research. This dual approach ‘opens up a critical space in which to explore how central ‘plans’ are mediated from below and the way in which projects of rule are applied differently in different places’ (McKee 2009:480). This is

particularly relevant for one of the key aims of my research in which I analyse factors that have contributed to the failure to establish a viable and sustainable illicit drug user advocacy organisation in Tasmania, while such organisations have prospered in other States.

This dual approach was chosen in light of the critique by McKee (2009) that

governmentality studies had a tendency to disregard empirical reality due to a focus on discourse as opposed to a ‘social realist’ approach to policy analysis. McKee perceived a tendency to focus primarily on government documents which has resulted in ‘a disconnection between the study of specific mentalities of rule and the social relations in which they are embedded’ (2009:473). She saw this as posing problems for understanding ‘the effects of power at the micro-level and the lived experience of subjection’ (2009:474). McKee proposed a strategy for overcoming this was to adopt what she described as a ‘realist governmentality’ approach by ‘complementing discursive analysis of emergent governmentalities with localized empirical accounts of actual governing practices’ (2009:478). This involves using ethnographic

approaches alongside analysis of government policy documents to show how policies actually play out in the real world. Such an approach illuminates ‘the contingent and particular national, sub-national and micro-level factors that may shape universalistic governmental rationalities’ (2009:480). It is with this in mind that I elected to

incorporate a Critical Discourse Analysis approach of various government texts with an ethnographic study of members of partnerships involving people who use illicit drugs in my research. This dual approach ‘opens up a critical space in which to

explore how central ‘plans’ are mediated from below and the way in which projects of rule are applied differently in different places’ (McKee 2009:480). This is particularly relevant for one of the key aims of my research in which I analyse factors that have contributed to the failure to establish a viable and sustainable illicit drug user

advocacy organisation in Tasmania, while such organisations have prospered in other States.

The method employed for the analysis of the documents was partly Foucauldian inspired analysis, in addition it also utilised elements of Critical Discourse Analysis. A Foucauldian approach was taken to place the policy development process within a genealogical, or ‘history of the present’ context and provide a better understanding of the factors which have contributed to contemporary approaches of addressing the issue of drug related harms. At the same time, elements of Critical Discourse Analysis were adopted to analyse the discursive practices and rhetorical strategies adopted in relevant policy documents to produce and maintain the social reality of drug problems and the strategic responses to these.

As one of the key theoretical orientations of the research was Foucault’s concept of governmentality it was imperative to analyse ‘the changing discursive fields within which the exercise of power is conceptualised’ (Rose and Miller 1992:175). The research illuminates the political rationalities, a key concern of governmentality scholars, which foster and utilise various forms of knowledge and expertise and the institutional and vocational location of those authorised to make truth claims relating to illicit drug use. Such an approach enables illumination of the exclusionary

procedures of neoliberal regimes and how, by establishing regimes of truth, they ‘not only exclude themes, arguments and speech positions from the discourse, but also produce outsiders, denounce groups of people as sick, abnormal or irrational, and grant other groups the right and legitimacy to treat these people’ (Andersen 2003:3). The historicising approach inspired by Foucault also enabled the analysis of

discontinuities or ‘ruptures’ evident in drug policy, such as the erosion of the

principles of harm minimisation and a discernable shift towards a “Tough on Drugs” zero tolerance approach.

By adopting a Critical Discourse Analysis approach the research analysed the processes and structures that impact on the formulation of contemporary harm minimisation policies in the field of illicit substance use. Critical Discourse Analysis

seeks to ‘explore the relationships between text, discourse and context [and] how the socially produced ideas and objects that populate the world were created in the first place and how they are maintained and held in place over time’ (Phillips and Hardy 2002:6) Critical Discourse Analysis is also concerned with uncovering the rhetorical devices and ideology which influence the production of various discourses (Lupton 1992), and ‘plays an advocatory role for groups who suffer social discrimination’ (Meyer 2009:15) making it a useful tool for policy analysis. Such a discursive approach is helpful in social policy analysis as it ‘can help to uncover how the use of language is connected to broader processes and practices, such as the reproduction of social relations or the construction of knowledge’ (Hastings 1998:192). The use of language ‘almost always occurs in a discursive context reflecting relations of power and domination’ (Atkinson 1999:61). Critical Discourse Analysis ‘intervenes on the side of the dominated and oppressed groups and against dominating groups, [and] openly declares the emancipatory interests that motivate it’ (Fairclough and Wodak 2004:358). As such, this research analyses the various power relations in play in the illicit drug policy arena and aims to give voice to those subjugated knowledges that are largely excluded from the policy development process.

This approach to analysing the texts was chosen above other possible methods, including traditional discourse analysis and ethnomethodology, as I consider the critical component of such an approach better situates the research to offer a more sophisticated critique of contemporary approaches to drug policy. Fairclough argues that traditional textual analysis ‘lacks a developed social orientation in failing to consider how relations of power have shaped discourse practices and in failing to situate … discourse historically in processes of social struggle and change’ (1993:15). He argues that traditional approaches have a tendency to treat texts as finished

products with inadequate attention paid to the processes of production and the tensions and contestations inherent in such processes (1993:2). Fairclough considers ethnomethodological approaches as similarly ‘non-critical’ with a tendency ‘to avoid general theory, and discussion or use of concepts such as class, power or ideology’ (1993:17).