The everyday lives of drugs

Abstract

The everyday is the material structure where the performance of culture and economy takes place. It is also the place where private and public institutions and bureaucracies set the rhythm of life for workers and citizens. Negotiating with the machines, be it factories, offices, online meeting rooms, the desks of administrators, and the rules of loans and credit institutions and agents is the stuff of everyday life. In the drug lifeworlds, the tedium that is often connected with everyday life–and with the study of everyday life–is often expected to be more exotic, filled with exciting encounters. Yet, drug lifeworlds can be equally tedious. What stands out in the study of everyday lifeworlds of drugs is how they compare, differ, and connect with the broader worlds of capitalist life, and so how they are not disjointed or separated from economic life. This introduction to The Everyday Lives of Drugs explores some of the overarching themes, methods, and ideas that inform the contributions to the collection, by reflecting on the potential of historical, fictional, and ethnographic narratives in the social sciences of illicit economies.