Undergraduate Course: Sociology of Intoxication (SCIL10054)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Sociology |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | The course examines what intoxication is, why people seek it out, and why it is often seen as a problem. It covers all licit and illicit drugs, and any other substances taken with the intention of altering the user's consciousness. In the course you will explore pleasure, deviance, abstinence, illicit leisure, socially obligatory drinking, extreme intoxication, taste and social distinction, the cultural construction of public problems, addiction and alcoholism, risk and enhancement. You will use evidence from the UK and around the world and will compare different cultures and contexts. You will conduct your own small research tasks which you will discuss in class and write up in an assessed blog. These tasks include: writing an ethnographic account of interactions in a party, club, pub or cafe; analysing illicit drug seizures by police; and interpreting drug use rituals. Class discussions are led by the topics, themes and examples that students come up with. Teaching is also supported by my Twitter feed, @socintox, which I use to alert the class to relevant resources and summarise key points in class discussions.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 Sociology or closely related courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses.
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| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2011/12 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
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WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Lecture | | 1-11 | | | | 11:10 - 13:00 | |
| First Class |
Week 1, Thursday, 11:10 - 13:00, Zone: Central. Seminar Room 1, Chrystal Macmillan Building |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
In the course you will $ö
Examine the patterns and practices of drug, alcohol and tobacco use in the UK and internationally.
Examine how some private substance use troubles become public problems, with regard to: addiction; alcoholism; binge drinking; smoking hazards.
Discuss the uses and merits of different forms of drug control.
Examine the strengths and weaknesses of various sociological, psychological, biological and anthropological approaches to and theories of substance use.
Explore the research base, the methods used to research substance use and limitations with them.
Produce your own sociological journal reflecting on the issues raised in the course.
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Assessment Information
| A combination of an online journal (25%) and long essay (75%). |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Political and media discourses only consider intoxication when it manifests as a social problem, treating its effects as accidental or incidental. This course aims to address two significant gaps in our thinking on this topic. First, we mostly think of the experience of intoxication $ú being drunk, getting high and so on $ú as happening largely at a physiological level. The content and construction of the experience of intoxication itself seems to be thought of as off-limits to sociological investigation and theorising, as irrelevant, or as an unfortunate and unwanted side effect. The course will explore the social factors involved in the generation of different experiences of intoxication. Second, when we do consider intoxication as worthy of study we turn it into a problem, rather than seeing it as a normal social practice, as much bounded by rules and norms as any other activity.
Instead, the course will examine intoxication as a practice embedded in social life.
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| Syllabus |
1. Introduction: Drugs and Intoxication
In this session we will discuss the questions: What is a drug?; and, What is intoxication?
2. Cultural Practices
In this session we examine the uses to which intoxicants are put and the ways their effects are shaped by material culture.
3. Ritual, Obligation and Distinction
This session examines the uses of drugs in rituals and in binding social groupings and affirming social bonds.
4. The Making and Managing of Drug and Alcohol Problems
Social problems are constructed out of private troubles. This session explores how this happens, and why only some personal difficulties with drugs become public problems.
5. Addiction and Alcoholism
It is possible to speak of some forms of dependency as socially sanctioned, caffeine addiction being a fairly benign example. Much recent academic writing on drugs has taken care to separate $ùproblem&© from $ùrecreational&© drug use. However, it has not really examined where the boundary between the two lies, and has tended to treat that separation as quite rigid whereas it is a mutable, porous boundary which is studied in this session.
6. Writing Workshop
I will be using an extra session as a voluntary workshop for the long essay and journal, open to anyone who wishes to attend.
7. Pleasure and the Experience Economy
The postmodern society is often said to be one where experiences are consumed, rather than lived. This session examines the political economy of intoxication experiences.
8. Too Much or too Little? Abstinence in a Culture of Intoxication
In Britain drinking appears normative. However a growing proportion of young people do not drink alcohol. Abstainers are often invisible in research, policy and media discussions. This session examines the meanings and challenges of abstinence.
9. Governing Drugs and Drug Users
This session explores crime and the governance of intoxication. It argues that it is becoming detached from established notions of agency and morality.
10. Discourses of Risk, Stigma and Vulnerability
Much of human action is accounted for in terms of risk by social scientists, although it is less often a category used by individuals themselves. This session examines the discourse around risk from intoxicants and from intoxicated others.
11. Conditioning, Medicalisation and Enhancement
This final session looks to the future and the institutionalised use of drugs to manage the self.
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| Transferable skills |
You will learn the following skills:
Ethnographic observation and analysis
Interpretation of population trends
Compare and evaluate evidence
Interpretation of media accounts
Assess social problems and policy responses Use research evidence to make policy proposals
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| Reading list |
I encourage you to read across disciplines, and some of the best work on intoxication is historical, anthropological and journalistic. A few examples are: Marshall, Mac (1979) Beliefs, Behaviors, & Alcoholic Beverages: A Cross-cultural Survey, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan; Schivelbusch, W. (1992) Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants, London, Vintage/Random House; Walton, Stuart (2001) Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication, London, Penguin; and Courtwright, David (2001) Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World, London, Harvard University Press.
Two good sociological texts on regulation and control of illicit drugs are Blackman, Shane (2004) Chilling Out: The Cultural Politics of Substance Consumption, Maidenhead, Open University Press; and Barton, Adam (2003) Illicit Drugs: Use and Control, London, Routledge. Two wide ranging edited collections are: Goldberg, Ray (ed.) (2008) Taking Sides: Clashing views in drugs and society, 8th ed. Boston, McGraw-Hill Higher Education; and Manning, Paul (2007) Drugs and Popular Culture: Drugs, Media and Identity in Contemporary Society, Cullompton, Willan Publishing. You can also look at Bancroft, Angus (2009) Drugs, Intoxication and Society, Cambridge, Polity Press, which emerged from teaching this course.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Angus Bancroft
Tel: (0131 6)50 6642
Email: Angus.Bancroft@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Sue Renton
Tel: (0131 6)50 6958
Email: Sue.Renton@ed.ac.uk |
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© Copyright 2011 The University of Edinburgh - 16 January 2012 6:47 am
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