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. 2016 Dec;40(4):395-410.
doi: 10.1007/s10624-016-9443-4. Epub 2016 Nov 11.

The Portapotty Experiment: Neoliberal approaches to the intertwined epidemics of opioid-related overdose and HIV/HCV, and why we need cultural anthropologists in the South Bronx

Brett Wolfson-Stofko  1 , Ric Curtis  2 , Faustino Fuentes  3 , Ed Manchess  4 , Alexis Del Rio-Cumba  4 , Alex S Bennett  1
Affiliations

The Portapotty Experiment: Neoliberal approaches to the intertwined epidemics of opioid-related overdose and HIV/HCV, and why we need cultural anthropologists in the South Bronx

Brett Wolfson-Stofko et al. Dialect Anthropol. 2016 Dec.

Abstract

The following report from the field focuses on the authors' collective efforts to operate an ad hoc safer injection facility (SIF) out of portapotties (portable toilets) in an area of the South Bronx that has consistently experienced some of the highest overdose morbidity and mortality rates in New York City over the past decade (New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2011, 2015, 2016). Safer injection facilities (also known as supervised injection facilities, drug consumption rooms, etc.) operating outside the US provide a legal, hygienic, and supervised environment for individuals to use drugs in order to minimize the likelihood of fatal overdose and the spread of blood-borne infections while reducing public injection. In the US, the operation of SIFs is federally prohibited by the federal "Crack House" statute though federal, state, and local elected officials can sanction their operation to various degrees (Beletsky, Davis, Anderson, & Burris, 2008). The activists, researchers, undergraduate students and peers from syringe exchange programs who came together to operate the portapotties discovered that they were, in many ways, emblematic of neoliberal solutions to disease prevention: primarily focused on auditing individual risk behaviors and virtually blind to the wider social context that shapes those lives. That social context - the culture of drug injection - was and is out in the open for all of us to see. Going forward, the cultural anthropologist's toolbox will be opened up and used by large groups of undergraduate students to better understand the culture of drug use and how it is changing.

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Figures

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Portapotties outside the future home of the 40th Precinct and approximately 100ft from the entrance to The Hole.
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Milk crate tables and supplies being utilized within the first 48 hours.
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Volunteers filling milk crate tables with supplies in The Hole.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Beletsky L, Davis CS, Anderson E, Burris S. The Law (and Politics) of Safe Injection Facilities in the United States. American Journal of Public Health. 2008;98(2):231–237. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2006.103747. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bourgois P. Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge University Press; 1995.
    1. Bourgois P. Righteous Dopefiend. University of California Press; 2009.
    1. Curtis R, Marcus A, Martin Y, West V, Heller D, Cini A, … Drucker E. A report submitted to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. 2016. Rapid Assessment of “Hot Spots” for homeless people and others in New York City. Retrieved from.
    1. Kamens DH. PISA, Power, and Policy: the emergence of global educational governance. 2013. Globalization and the emergence of an audit culture: PISA and the search for ‘best practices’ and magic bullets; pp. 117–139.

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