Beyond Voice
Special Section Introduction
Tag: Special Section/Special Issue Submission
Thinking Through Voice with a Somali (Love Doctor) Poet
During research on love songs and political poetry in Somaliland, one of my closest interlocutors has been a poet named Weedhsame who describes his work as arising from a duty to ‘give voice to the voiceless’. Collaborating with a musician a…
Silence as Presence
‘Giving voice’ can be an empowering metaphor for the process of creating space for another’s perspective, allowing for their experience to be noted and attended to. Yet it is also a metaphor that relies on a particular form of articulation. …
Normative Language and Judgements of Cognition: A Methodological Reflection on Difficult Sign Language Interactions
In this article, I investigate the case of a deaf woman, Silivia, who lived in western Uganda. Silivia did not use standardised sign language and was commonly considered to be ‘mad.’ However, some of her interlocutors disagreed, arguing that…
Sugar, A Morally Ambiguous Substance: Responsibility, Social Class and Pleasure in Scotland’s State Primary Schools
Children’s sugar consumption has been marked out as an important area of public health policymaking in the UK, due to connections between sugar consumption, obesity, type 2 diabetes and dental decay. Yet unlike other regulated substances (al…
Psychoactive Agents: Drugs, Morality, and Responsibility
Special Section Introduction
Solace of Substance: Agency, Surrender, and Consolation in Addiction and Polydrug Use
Although preceding its association with substance use, early uses of the term ‘addiction’ signified intense attachment or ‘devotion’ to an activity or pursuit, indicating compromised autonomy, a necessary ‘culling’ of conflicting obligations…
Sugar, A Morally Ambiguous Substance: Responsibility, Social Class and Pleasure in Scotland’s State Primary Schools
Children’s sugar consumption has been marked out as an important area of public health policymaking in the UK, due to connections between sugar consumption, obesity, type 2 diabetes and dental decay. Yet unlike other regulated substances (al…
A Potent Chew?: Kenyan Khat and the Agency of Drugs
Few other categories of things appear so bound up with questions of agency, power and responsibility as that of ‘drugs’. With over a century of global treaties and prohibition of such substances, we are accustomed to thinking of them as pote…
Solace of Substance: Agency, Surrender, and Consolation in Addiction and Polydrug Use
Although preceding its association with substance use, early uses of the term ‘addiction’ signified intense attachment or ‘devotion’ to an activity or pursuit, indicating compromised autonomy, a necessary ‘culling’ of conflicting obligations…
UK Khat Prohibition and the Making of a Harmful Drug
This article delves into the complex dynamics of khat (Catha edulis) prohibition in the UK, with a particular focus on a Somali community in north-west London. Despite the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs finding no substantial eviden…
Psychoactive Agents: Drugs, Morality, and Responsibility
Special Section Introduction
A Potent Chew?: Kenyan Khat and the Agency of Drugs
Few other categories of things appear so bound up with questions of agency, power and responsibility as that of ‘drugs’. With over a century of global treaties and prohibition of such substances, we are accustomed to thinking of them as pote…
UK Khat Prohibition and the Making of a Harmful Drug
This article delves into the complex dynamics of khat (Catha edulis) prohibition in the UK, with a particular focus on a Somali community in north-west London. Despite the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs finding no substantial eviden…