L'intervention en contexte de réduction des méfaits et consommation de drogue : ethnographie des négociations morales des intervenantes d'un organisme communautaire
This master’s thesis is the result of a research conducted among a social intervention community organization in drug addiction. This community bases its work on a harm reduction approach and is in a Canadian urban center. This research is especially oriented toward the institutionalization of harm reduction in the public health system. This analysis is mostly based on more than 200 hours of observation, and 19 semi-structured interviews. The research aims to enlighten how the intervention team, and especially the social workers and case workers, put into application their axiological foundations. This set of priorities, inspired by harm reduction and the field of social work, shape a local system of norms and values. The daily adherence to this system of values leads to various issues, observed at various levels: ethical, interpersonal, personal, professional and societal. This adherence is generally observed through team cohesion and professional mechanisms. Doing so, the intervention team members act as ethical subjects, and end up negotiating with their own position and the meaning they give to their work, through the moral community landmarks. In this context, ethic serves as ground for social, political and economical criticism. Nevertheless, through observation of the team’s intervention ethos, we consider that it is their very possibilities of action and of ethical reflection which are at stakes. Therefore, this master’s thesis is about the interaction of various normative unfolding in micro interactions with service users, and with the institutions including public health mechanisms. As they act as limiting forces, they also open a field of possibilities for social workers as ethical and moral subjects. Those possibilities are entries to investigate the institutionalized harm reduction system and its limits of application.
intervention sociale profession harm reduction ethic moral moral and ethical anthropology health anthropology symbolic interactionism social intervention community organization norms values drugs poverty marginality public health technique of the self