Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Post-Doc, Department of Social Anthropology

Thesis Title: Facing the Dragon: Exploring a conscious phenomenology of intoxication

About

I completed my doctoral studies in January 2007 at NTNU, with a primary focus on anthropological approaches to substance use and abuse in contemporary society. My dissertation was entitled "Facing the Dragon: Exploring a conscious phenomenology of intoxication” and can be regarded as a continuation of my masters thesis which explored rehabilitation from a user’s perspective based on fieldwork at a methadone clinic here in Trondheim, Norway.
The main objective has been to use the discipline as a reflexive cultural critique in developing and applying traditional anthropological theory and methods to contemporary social problems such as illicit drug use and addiction. In this respect anthropology is in a unique position to provide a much needed critical analysis of the politics of consciousness by examining our own native constructs, the dominant climate within which research is conducted and the place of ingested substances in social life. I have mostly relied on an integral phenomenological approach that specifically draws on concepts like intentionality, embodied subjectivity and consciousness as they relate to patterns of drug use and the role intoxication and addiction plays in every day life.
The aim has been to present different user narratives in all their complexity and uniqueness while simultaneously allowing for a processual representation that both captures and exemplifies the continual dialectic between agency and communion, self and other, structure and creativity as it is articulated throughout recurring themes within a wider, more holistic model.



I am currently engaged as a Post doctor working on a project entitled “Cannabis: An ethnographic exploration of individual trends and socio-cultural context”. Here I will investigate how transitions and variations in user trajectories are affected by considerations of space, time, social interaction and identity in different contexts and how different user perspectives compare with and are affected by established norms, values and established representations in society at large.

Contact Information