Assembling and diversifying social contexts of recovery

Abstract

Recovery from drug use is receiving increased attention in critical drug studies. Researchers point out the importance of scrutinizing the term and its meanings anew in order to better understand drug use treatment policies and their effects on the individuals they target. Informed by relational ontological thinking, this article analyses a series of empirical accounts of recovery experiences, and offers a critical assessment of the social contexts of recovery. Qualitative data collected in Azerbaijan and Germany provide distinctive reports of the differentiated experiences of youth as they make and re-make sense of their recovery within specific recovery contexts. Discussions reveal how recovery advances in relations between human and nonhuman actors including spaces, bodies, affects, and practices. On the basis of this analysis, we argue that recovery may be framed as an emergent and dynamic context that becomes with and from drug use.