Transforming Harm: The Crises of Opioids, Conjunctural Politics, and Struggles for Care in Southern Appalachia

The impact of the current opioid crisis on Southern Appalachia has catalyzed shifts towards public health-based harm reduction in the United States (US) regime of criminalized drug prohibition. Engaging a vital issue of debate—whether or not these shifts are significantly altering the "war on drugs"—my dissertation uses a conjunctural perspective to examine how the state is mobilizing harm reduction to violently reconfigure and resolve the structural contradictions condensed within the opioid crisis under a pretense of care. By locating present struggles over harm reduction in Southern Appalachia within longer movements, moments, and histories of mutual aid organizing, I identify key sites of potential rupture from which to point towards abolitionist alternatives.