Affect, stimmung and governing young drug users: an affirmative critique of a Danish drug user treatment programme

Abstract

This article has two key contributions. The first is empirical, and looks at how a Danish drug treatment agency, inspired by critical and post-modern approaches to psychology, has developed methods of overcoming problems of participation and stigmatization, and of empowering young people with a known history of illegal substance use. I will analyze how, in collaboration with social workers, young users can utilize media technologies to produce stories about new ways of being, feeling and acting, and how these are used to change the social dynamics around such young people and open for the becoming of new relational subjectivities. Using Governmentality studies as a foundation, the second contribution is analytical and theoretical, and proposes Heidegger’s concept of ‘Stimmung’, (attunement, mood, atmosphere) as a concept that makes it possible to analyze how discursive and affective strategies intra-act and how we can adequately theorize the role of affect in subjectification processes.