“It’s professional but it’s personal” - Participation, personal connection, and sustained disagreement in drug policy reform

By UNSW Social Policy Research Centre

About this event

Participation, personal connection, and sustained disagreement in drug policy reform

While there is widespread agreement as to the importance of increasing participation in drug policy design, drug policy literature contains limited reflection on the practices that may support inclusion and collaboration among policy actors, particularly when disagreement and difference are an intrinsic part of participation. Drawing on qualitative interviews and participant observation with actors engaged in an Australian illicit drug policy reform campaign, this seminar examines how modes of personal connection matter in establishing and maintaining working relationships between a range of differently situated actors.

Laura McLauchlan is a multispecies anthropologist working with the Drug Policy Modelling Centre at the Social Policy Research Centre at UNSW. Her work focuses on the generative possibilities of marginal and under-recognised practices within dominant science and policy worlds. Her current work looks at the blocks to and potentials of participatory approaches in policy design.