The becoming of methadone in Kenya: How an intervention's implementation constitutes recovery potential

Abstract

This analysis treats the recent introduction of methadone treatment in Kenya as a case of ‘evidence-making intervention’. Using 30 qualitative interviews with people in receipt of methadone treatment in Nairobi, Kenya, methadone's becoming is treated as an effect of its narrative and material implementations. The interviews are shown to enact a narrative of methadone recovery potential towards normalcy beyond addiction. Such recovery potential is materialised in practice through social interactions wherein methadone's embodied effects are seen to be believed. Here, the recovering body affects others' recovery potential. In a context of competing claims about methadone's effects, including the circulation of doubt about experimenting with methadone treatment, embodied methadone effect helps moderate the multiverse of methadone knowledge. The material dynamics of methadone treatment delivery also affect its recovery potential, with the methadone queue enacting a rationing of recovery hope. Here, the experience of methadone's implementation loops back to a life with drugs. I conclude that there is a coexistence of potentiality and actuality, a ‘methadone multiple’, produced through its narrative and material implementations.