Selections of Reality: Applying Burke's Dramatism to a Harm Reduction Policy

Margaretha Järvinen; Gale Miller

doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.02.014

Selections of Reality: Applying Burke's Dramatism to a Harm Reduction Policy

Margaretha Järvinen, Gale Miller

5 Citations (Scopus)

373 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Kenneth Burke's dramatistic perspective is applied to accounts told by staff members working in methadone maintenance treatment centres in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a harm reduction strategy, methadone maintenance is designed to reduce the costs and dangers of chronic long-term drug use by providing substitution (methadone) treatment to users. Burke's dramatistic perspective calls attention to the recurring relationships among rhetorical elements within accounts of social reality. The elements form a pentad: scene, purpose, agent, agency and acts. Our analysis examines how the ideal of governmentality is constructed by staff members to justify and criticize the operations of the Copenhagen methadone maintenance program. For Burke, social criticism involves rearranging pentadic elements to produce new meanings and justify alternative actions. We discuss how Burke's perspective might be developed by sociologists as a critical dramatism of social policies and programs.

Original language	English
Journal	International Journal of Drug Policy
Volume	25
Issue number	5
Pages (from-to)	879-887
ISSN	0955-3959
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.02.014
Publication status	Published - 2014

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10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.02.014

Selections of Reality

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title = "Selections of Reality: Applying Burke's Dramatism to a Harm Reduction Policy",

abstract = "Kenneth Burke's dramatistic perspective is applied to accounts told by staff members working in methadone maintenance treatment centres in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a harm reduction strategy, methadone maintenance is designed to reduce the costs and dangers of chronic long-term drug use by providing substitution (methadone) treatment to users. Burke's dramatistic perspective calls attention to the recurring relationships among rhetorical elements within accounts of social reality. The elements form a pentad: scene, purpose, agent, agency and acts. Our analysis examines how the ideal of governmentality is constructed by staff members to justify and criticize the operations of the Copenhagen methadone maintenance program. For Burke, social criticism involves rearranging pentadic elements to produce new meanings and justify alternative actions. We discuss how Burke's perspective might be developed by sociologists as a critical dramatism of social policies and programs.",

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AB - Kenneth Burke's dramatistic perspective is applied to accounts told by staff members working in methadone maintenance treatment centres in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a harm reduction strategy, methadone maintenance is designed to reduce the costs and dangers of chronic long-term drug use by providing substitution (methadone) treatment to users. Burke's dramatistic perspective calls attention to the recurring relationships among rhetorical elements within accounts of social reality. The elements form a pentad: scene, purpose, agent, agency and acts. Our analysis examines how the ideal of governmentality is constructed by staff members to justify and criticize the operations of the Copenhagen methadone maintenance program. For Burke, social criticism involves rearranging pentadic elements to produce new meanings and justify alternative actions. We discuss how Burke's perspective might be developed by sociologists as a critical dramatism of social policies and programs.

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Selections of Reality: Applying Burke's Dramatism to a Harm Reduction Policy

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