PREVENTION METAMORPHOSES: preventing risky behavior in France

Abstract

The article describes the discourses and practices of professionals and institutions that employ preventive social technologies inspired by the approach called “risk behavior prevention” in France. Theoretically, the text addresses the subjectivation processes involved in such prevention, the application of the concept of risk in the preventive field, and the tensions between this field and social control. It also seeks to trace possible origins and the institutionalization trajectory of French preventive policies based on this approach, as well as the techniques and methodologies used by the institutions in their work among psychoactive substances users and young people considered “at risk” or “socially vulnerable”. Finally, it presents an ethnographic description of the strategies, discourses and social technologies involved in attempts to prevent young people from entering the drug trade.