Proudfoot Dissertation
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The Anxious Enjoyment of Poverty: Drug Addiction, Panhandling, and the Spaces of Psychoanalysis by Jesse Proudfoot B.A., University of British Columbia, 2001 M.A., Simon Fraser University, 2006 Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Geography Faculty of Environment © Jesse Proudfoot 2011 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Fall 2011 All rights reserved. However, in accordance with the Copyright Act of Canada, this work may be reproduced, without authorization, under the conditions for Fair Dealing. Therefore, limited reproduction of this work for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, review and news reporting is likely to be in accordance with the law, particularly if cited appropriately. Approval Name: Jesse Proudfoot Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title of Thesis: The Anxious Enjoyment of Poverty: Drug Addiction, Panhandling, and the Spaces of Psychoanalysis Examining Committee: Chair: Dr. Janet Sturgeon Associate Professor, Geography Dr. Paul Kingsbury Senior Supervisor Associate Professor, Geography Dr. Nick Blomley Supervisor Professor, Geography Dr. Eugene McCann Supervisor Associate Professor, Geography Dr. Clint Burnham Internal Examiner Associate Professor, English Dr. Chris Philo External Examiner Professor, Geography University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK Date Defended/Approved: ii Partial Copyright Licence SIMON FMASER UNIVERSITY 'II'JO~IJOG OF 'JOE WORLD STATEMENT OF ETHICS APPROVAL The author, whose name appears on the title page of this work, has obtained, for the research described in this work, either: (a) Human research ethics approval from the Simon Fraser University Office of Research Ethics, or (b) Advance approval of the animal care protocol from the University Animal Care Committee of Simon Fraser University; or has conducted the research (c) as a co-investigator, collaborator or research assistant in a research project approved in advance, or (d) as a member of a course approved in advance for minimal risk human research, by the Office of Research Ethics. A copy of the approval letter has been filed at the Theses Office of the University Library at the time of submission of this thesis or project. The original application for approval and letter of approval are filed with the relevant offices. Inquiries may be directed to those authorities. Simon Fraser University Library Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC, Canada Last update: Spring 2010 Abstract This dissertation draws on fieldwork with drug-using panhandlers and interviews with social service providers to examine drug addiction and panhandling as social issues significant to poor and gentrifying neighbourhoods. I provide ethnographic accounts of both of these phenomena, beginning with drug users’ experiences of Vancouver’s current harm reduction drug policy initiatives, such as the Insite supervised injection site and methadone treatment programmes. In the second half of the dissertation, I provide a similar account of panhandling in the rapidly gentrifying Gastown area of the Downtown Eastside. The dissertation draws on this empirical research to offer a social-theoretical framework for understanding panhandling and drug addiction as social issues with the capacity to provoke visceral, emotional reactions on the part of those who encounter them and those who are charged with regulating them. Characterizing this reaction as one of anxiety, I trace a series of anxieties which permeate discourses on panhandling and drug addiction, from concerns with the pleasures of drug users to anxieties over what poor people do with their money. The dissertation seeks to resolve paradoxes within both of these social phenomena: How can we account for the anger, discomfort, and disgust that are provoked in people by issues that affect them so little? How can we explain people’s implacability to drug policy that is so empirically sound? And how can we understand people’s anxieties with panhandling encounters when the amounts of money concerned are so insignificant? Drawing a distinction between the manifest and latent content of these anxieties, I use psychoanalysis to argue that they cannot be understood without recourse to the unconscious. I argue that the discourses and public policy that concern drug use and panhandling are subtended by unconscious anxieties about the jouissance and the lack in the Other. Only when we consider the unconscious dimensions of these social phenomena can we understand the visceral, emotional reactions that panhandling and drug addiction regularly provoke. Keywords: Harm reduction; drug addiction; panhandling; psychoanalysis; anxiety; Downtown Eastside. iii Dedication To René, who got clean. iv Acknowledgements The idea of trying to thank everyone who helped me in this project strikes me as impossible. If I included everyone who was truly important to this project; everyone with whom I have had thought-provoking discussions about psychoanalysis, cities, gentrification, activism, and poverty, I would never reach the end. Let me try to keep this manageable by focussing only on those who have been closest to this project— knowing that the rest of you, my dear friends, know who you are and how essential you’ve been to me. To Paul Kingsbury, my supervisor, who guided me through the past four years with grace and skill, sage advice and great humour. Thank you, you’ve become a true friend and I feel privileged to have been your first Ph.D. student. To Eugene and Nick, who have been on both my supervisory committees in grad school and who have never failed to sharpen my thinking and force me to consider the familiar in a different light. I owe a huge debt to Hilda Fernandez, Clint Burnham, and the members of the Vancouver Lacan Salon for three years of wonderful discussion. In the Salon, I found the intellectual community I was always looking for. Thank you for showing me that all it takes is a group of thoughtful, dedicated people getting together at a community centre— and for demonstrating how rare that situation actually is! In particular, thank you to Salon member Chris Dzierzawa for some wonderful conversations, which helped me to see my experiences with panhandlers and psychoanalysis in striking, novel ways. I’ve thanked you specifically in chapter four for our conversations about panhandling and the circulation of lack. To Luisa, for so, so many things. Our conversations about politics, activism, and ethics have made a huge impact on me, far more than you realize. I like talking to you about ideas more than almost anyone else. Thank you for everything. To all the people in the Downtown Eastside who worked with me on this project, answering deeply personal questions and trying to show me something about your lives. To the extent that I understand anything new about the experiences of poor people in the neighbourhood, it is because of you. I would also like to acknowledge the support of SSHRC, who funded this project with a Joseph–Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and the Affordable Housing Society of British Columbia (BC Housing) for keeping a roof over my head. Grad school has been a wonderful time in my life and this is due, in no small part, to cheap rent and generous funding. v Table of Contents Approval................................................................................................................................................. ii Abstract .................................................................................................................................................iii Dedication ............................................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................. vi List of Tables ......................................................................................................................................viii List of Figures....................................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1. Introduction............................................................................................................... 1 Gentrification, Poor Neighbourhoods, and Psychoanalysis.............................................................. 10 Outline of the Dissertation .................................................................................................................. 18 Research Design, Methods, Methodology......................................................................................... 26 Chapter 2. The Derelict, the Deserving Poor, and the Lumpen: A History of the Politics of Representation in the Downtown Eastside ................................................................. 33 Chapter 3. Beyond the Pleasure Principle of Drug Policy: Biopolitics, Jouissance, and the Obscene Enjoyment of Harm Reduction.................................................... 56 Introduction: Seeing Harm Reduction Through the Law ................................................................. 57 Overview of the Chapter ..................................................................................................................... 60 Harm Reduction..................................................................................................................................