You Care More for the Gear Than the Geezer? Care Relationships of Homeless Substance Users in London

Abstract

AbstractCare for homeless people in general and homeless substance abusers in particular has been well explored as a research topic (Fisher and Collins ; Seal ; Desjarlais ; Pleace and Quilgars ; Bevan ; Briggs ). Historically, academics have been interested in care in settings as diverse as families, hospitals, asylums, poorhouses, the criminal justice system and more recently what has been called the ‘community’. In this paper, I want to look at two different dimensions of care in a particular social world of substance using homeless people in London where the people are not always the likely recipients but active providers of care. I understand care in Mol's and Winance's sense as a process of tinkering (Mol ; Winance ). The most dominant form of care is produced by many homeless substance users themselves: they care for drugs. The relationship to ‘their’ substance is often highly intimate and characterized by physical and emotional closeness, commitment and accord. Drugs develop person‐like characteristics and ‘demand’ care, promising intimacy and a sense of self. Dominated by the need to care for drugs in this way, other (human‐to‐human) relationships can become increasingly fragmented and the social net can become hollowed out, instrumental and even violent. Geographies split apart with different logics between public and intimate; sub‐cities emerge. But at the same time as the drug develops into the object of care demanding attention, the responsibility to care can develop a shared dimension. Friendships and love relationships grow based on intimate care which still centre on drugs but go far beyond it in their carefulness and interconnection. This is where geographies merge, connections are made and futures are built.