Care in an Opioid Substitution Therapy Daycentre

Care is getting increasing attention as important for harm reduction for people who use drugs (PWUD). As a contribution to the literature about the role that care can play in harm reduction, this article presents a study of the care provided at a daycentre for PWUD. Based on semi-structured interviews with PWUD and staff at the daycentre and field notes from researchers, the article shows how care is enacted through the social interaction between staff and users and how the daycentre is constituted as an enabling place. However, the article also shows how care involves power. Analytical tools from feminist care research and Collins' interaction ritual theory are used to investigate how care practices can generate social, material and affective resources for PWUD. The article emphasises the important role that interaction rituals can play in mobilising social and affective resources. It also shows that it is important to be attentive to the ‘politics of care’ when care is provided.