Mats Ekendahl
Biographic Data
| ID | 263663 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mats Ekendahl |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mats |
| FAMILY NAME | Ekendahl |
| SIGNATURE | EKENDAHL M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stockholm University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2295-4078 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 55 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
From disruption to empowerment
Background Youth substance use is considered a high-priority issue in Sweden, yet research on youth treatment trajectories remains limited. This study adopts a narrative approach to explore how young people interpret substance use treatment, and how treatment aims, assumptions, and language resonate with their identity-work.Methods We conducted 25 interviews with participants aged 15–20 years who had recently been enrolled in treatment. The data …
Surveilled subjectivation
In Sweden, possession and personal use of drugs are criminalized since 1988, resulting in police work being directed towards minor drug offenses. Despite this, police and other authorities are encouraged to protect the health and wellbeing of people who use prohibited drugs (PWUPD). Knowledge is scarce on how this drug policy plays out in practice. This study therefore analyzes interviews with 20 PWUPD who visited harm reduction services and inte…
Staff Interpellation of Drug Testing in Youth Substance Use Treatment
Drug testing through urinalysis is extensively used in the treatment system for youth substance use, in Sweden and elsewhere. Still, knowledge is scarce on how treatment staff understand the impact of this assessment method on disciplinary roles, work prioritizations, collaboration with other stakeholders, and meeting service users’ needs. This study aimed to examine assumptions about biotechnology, patients and interventions that professionals i…
Everyday Intoxications
Much sociological research on young people's drug consumption seeks to push past the narrow public health focus on risk and harm by centering pleasure as a key dynamic shaping the motivations and outcomes of these practices. This scholarship demonstrates the limits of a myopic focus on danger by examining, for example, meaningful forms of intimacy, social connection, and generative embodied pleasures that form alongside drug consumption. This oft…
The nitrous oxide problem in Swedish prohibitionist drug policy
Background: As in many countries, nitrous oxide (N2O) is problematized in Sweden. New legislation restricts sales to minors and for intoxication, but does not prohibit N2O altogether, which would have been expected within the framework of Swedish prohibitionist drug policy. In this study, we analyze how N2O intoxication was represented as a problem in national political discourse and how this representation was morally justified. Methods: Bacchi’…
Problem representations in Swedish youth substance use treatment
Swedish youth substance use problems are mainly treated at so-called Maria clinics, multidisciplinary units employing both medical and psychosocial staff. Interventions include assessments of substance use and health, urine testing, counselling and education about drug harms. The study analyzes how treatment staff represent youth problems in interviews so that they align with such interventions. We draw on Carol Bacchi's (2009) post-structuralist…
Atmospheres of craving
Aims Craving is commonly described as an 'intense desire' to use drugs. Due to its relevance for addiction theories and treatment, much effort has been put into understanding how and when craving occurs. An undisputed definition of craving is however still lacking. The aim of this article is to explore how craving is experienced and resisted after cessation of substance use.Methods This article analyses interviews with former addiction treatment …
Media constructions of an illegal drug
Background Lately, there has been massive media coverage of gang-related criminality in ‘exposed areas’ in Sweden. Politicians have blamed the illegal drugs trade without questioning the country’s prohibitionist drug policy. This study analyzes how cannabis is constructed in Swedish newspaper articles that mention both organized crime and cannabis. We ask how the drug and its buyers and sellers are described, what discourses are drawn upon, and d…
Is there a gender paradox in the association between conduct problems and cannabis use? A cohort‐study among Swedish adolescents
Urine Samples and Drug-Body-Treatment Assemblages
Drug testing plays a key role in youth substance use treatment in Sweden. Young people treated for substance use problems are routinely required to leave urine samples, and there is often controversy between patients and staff around its relevance. Still, there is a lack of research on how young people make sense of this practice. This article contributes to this knowledge through an ANT-inspired (Actor Network Theory) analysis of how youth enact…
Stability and Change in Substance Use Among Swedish Adolescents
Background: Research is needed on how substance use patterns develop over time in the general adolescent population. This knowledge is crucial in calibrating prevention and other interventions. Method: The study concerns use of cigarettes, alcohol, and cannabis in a nationally representative cohort of Swedish adolescents (n = 3999). Two waves (9th and 11th school grade) from the Futura01 study were analyzed using latent transition analysis (LTA) …
Exploring the Link between ADHD and Cannabis Use in Swedish Ninth Graders
Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has in several studies been linked to substance use, including cannabis use. However, crucial gaps remain regarding how to understand this association. Analyzing the association between ADHD and substance use is complicated because of a pronounced overlap between ADHD, conduct problems, and traits such as sensation-seeking. Objectives: Using data from a large and nationally representativ…
Comparisons in the making
Research shows that cannabis is understood differently across cannabis cultures. In Sweden, young cannabis users are seen as vulnerable, problem-burdened and increasingly embracing drug-liberal attitudes. Despite low prevalence rates, youth cannabis use is considered a high-profile problem that warrants prohibition. Previous studies show that staff in Swedish addiction treatment legitimize resolute interventions by making up young users as irrati…
Noticed and then Forgotten
In this article, we analyse interview data on how alcohol policy stakeholders in Australia, Canada and Sweden understand the relationship between men, masculinities, alcohol and violence. Using influential feminist scholarship on public policy and liberal political theory to analyse interviews with 42 alcohol policy stakeholders, we argue that while these stakeholders view men’s violence as a key issue for intervention, masculinities are backgrou…
A matter of craving–An archeology of relapse prevention in Swedish addiction treatment
This article concerns how craving is approached and handled, how it is ‘made up’, in the practice of so-called relapse prevention (RP) for addiction problems. There is a lack of research on what RP in general, and craving in particular, ‘is’ and can become across settings. Drawing upon science and technology studies (STS) and critical addiction research, we analyze how craving is enacted in manuals and training material related to the interventio…
Gendering practices in quantitative research on alcohol and violence
The hammer and the nail
The analytical, the political and the personal
For public health interventions to be effective, they need to be supported or at least accepted by those affected, and social policy should therefore be understood as political and strategic. This raises questions about the relationship between the analytical, the political and the personal in policy processes. This article offers an in-depth analysis of such issues, as they were enacted during interviews with Swedish alcohol policy stakeholders.…
Self-interpellation in narratives about craving
The concept of addiction seeks to explain why people act contrary to their own best interest. At the centre stage of addiction discourse is craving, conceptualised as a strong urge to use substances. This article analyses how talk therapies such as relapse prevention and self-help groups shape identity constructions and understandings of craving among clients. Drawing upon interviews with individuals who have engaged in talk therapies in Sweden, …
Fixed and fluid at the same time
This article explores how professionals within Swedish addiction treatment (n = 18) describe and make sense of relapse prevention (RP). RP is known as a self-control programme for maintaining behavioural change, helping people deal with high-risk situations. However, since self-control techniques have been incorporated widely in the addiction treatment field, the specificities of RP have become vague. To grasp what RP ‘is’, we draw on John Law’s …
Multiple Logics
This study analyzes how staff in Swedish alcohol and other drug (AoD) treatment interpellate service users as people who can benefit from relapse prevention. Relapse prevention is a widely used intervention. Research is scarce, however, on how relapse prevention is practiced locally and how treatment staff perceive the relationship between AoD use as a problem and relapse prevention as a solution. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory and critical stud…
Displacements of gender
Alcohol-related violence', especially among young people participating in the night-time economy (NTE), has been the subject of intense public and policy debate in Australia. Previous sociological work has highlighted the relationship between men, masculinities and violence, but this relationship has received little attention in the research that tends to garner policy attention. In this article, we focus on the treatment of gender in Australian …
Making gender along the way
Analysis of alcohol policy suggests women are marked out for special attention while men and masculinities are often ignored. In this paper, we employ Carol Bacchi’s work on ‘gendering practices’ and John Law’s concept of ‘collateral realities’ to examine how gender is constituted in Australian alcohol policy. For Bacchi, policies actively produce what it is possible for ‘men’ and ‘women’ to become. For Law, realities are constituted through meth…
Obscuring Gendered Difference
Despite public debate about alcohol and public violence among young people in Australia, the issue of masculinities or gender is rarely visible in alcohol policy. Instead, policy recommendations aimed at reducing violence focus on changing the availability and consumption of alcohol. Drawing on concepts from feminist and science and technology studies scholarship, this article analyses how “alcohol-related violence” is constituted as a specific p…
Logics of Legitimation in Swedish Treatment for Youth Cannabis Use
Liberal views on cannabis use are widespread in many Western countries, but prohibitionism remains strong in Sweden. According to Swedish drug policy, comprehensive prevention and treatment interventions are necessary because young people are considered particularly vulnerable to cannabis-related harm. In this article, we examine how staff at Swedish outpatient treatment centers for young substance users (called “MiniMaria”) use different logics …
Making gender along the way
Analysis of alcohol policy suggests women are marked out for special attention while men and masculinities are often ignored. In this paper, we employ Carol Bacchi’s work on ‘gendering practices’ and John Law’s concept of ‘collateral realities’ to examine how gender is constituted in Australian alcohol policy. For Bacchi, policies actively produce what it is possible for ‘men’ and ‘women’ to become. For Law, realities are constituted through meth…
Getting Better”
The alcohol and other drug field is characterized by great diversity in kinds of treatment and treatment philosophies. Even the kinds of problems treatment is expected to address vary significantly, although agreement seems to exist that the general purpose is to help people “get better.” This article considers this diversity, drawing on a qualitative project conducted in three countries: Australia, Canada, and Sweden. Inspired by the project’s m…
Drugs, Brains and Other Subalterns
Over the last few decades feminists, science and technology studies scholars and others have grappled with how to take materiality into account in understanding social practices, subjectivity and events. One key area for these debates has been drug use and addiction. At the same time, neuroscientific accounts of drug use and addiction have also arisen. This development has attracted criticism as simplistically reinstating material determinism. In…
Protecting Prohibition
During recent years, political discussions about how to deal with cannabis use have become increasingly centered on harm reduction and liberalization in large parts of the Western world. In Sweden, however, no such re-framing of the issue has occurred. There has been political status quo with emphasis on prohibition and zero tolerance. This study aims to elucidate how the cannabis policy discourse in Sweden is characterized today to legitimize re…
Displacements of gender
Alcohol-related violence', especially among young people participating in the night-time economy (NTE), has been the subject of intense public and policy debate in Australia. Previous sociological work has highlighted the relationship between men, masculinities and violence, but this relationship has received little attention in the research that tends to garner policy attention. In this article, we focus on the treatment of gender in Australian …
Logics of Legitimation in Swedish Treatment for Youth Cannabis Use
Liberal views on cannabis use are widespread in many Western countries, but prohibitionism remains strong in Sweden. According to Swedish drug policy, comprehensive prevention and treatment interventions are necessary because young people are considered particularly vulnerable to cannabis-related harm. In this article, we examine how staff at Swedish outpatient treatment centers for young substance users (called “MiniMaria”) use different logics …
Obscuring Gendered Difference
Despite public debate about alcohol and public violence among young people in Australia, the issue of masculinities or gender is rarely visible in alcohol policy. Instead, policy recommendations aimed at reducing violence focus on changing the availability and consumption of alcohol. Drawing on concepts from feminist and science and technology studies scholarship, this article analyses how “alcohol-related violence” is constituted as a specific p…
Urine Samples and Drug-Body-Treatment Assemblages
Drug testing plays a key role in youth substance use treatment in Sweden. Young people treated for substance use problems are routinely required to leave urine samples, and there is often controversy between patients and staff around its relevance. Still, there is a lack of research on how young people make sense of this practice. This article contributes to this knowledge through an ANT-inspired (Actor Network Theory) analysis of how youth enact…
The analytical, the political and the personal
For public health interventions to be effective, they need to be supported or at least accepted by those affected, and social policy should therefore be understood as political and strategic. This raises questions about the relationship between the analytical, the political and the personal in policy processes. This article offers an in-depth analysis of such issues, as they were enacted during interviews with Swedish alcohol policy stakeholders.…
Alcohol abuse, compulsory treatment and successive aftercare
In Sweden, the social welfare boards have a statutory duty to provide aftercare for compulsorily treated substance abusers. However, there are no data on how the aftercare is organised and how clients perceive this phase of the compulsory treatment process. The aim of the study is to analyse how a sample of compulsorily treated alcohol abusers ( n = 12) characterise the current coercive treatment episode and evaluate previously experienced and fo…
Self-interpellation in narratives about craving
The concept of addiction seeks to explain why people act contrary to their own best interest. At the centre stage of addiction discourse is craving, conceptualised as a strong urge to use substances. This article analyses how talk therapies such as relapse prevention and self-help groups shape identity constructions and understandings of craving among clients. Drawing upon interviews with individuals who have engaged in talk therapies in Sweden, …
Multiple Logics
This study analyzes how staff in Swedish alcohol and other drug (AoD) treatment interpellate service users as people who can benefit from relapse prevention. Relapse prevention is a widely used intervention. Research is scarce, however, on how relapse prevention is practiced locally and how treatment staff perceive the relationship between AoD use as a problem and relapse prevention as a solution. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory and critical stud…
The construction of maintenance treatment legitimacy
Opiate addict maintenance treatment (MT) has been controversial in Sweden. In 2004, however, a public authority conducted a review of MT research that paved the way for a relatively less restrictive policy. The present study examines how scientific evidence was constructed in the preparation of this policy shift. Written commentaries (by authorities, organisations etc) on a preliminary version of the review were analysed by use of discourse theor…
Why not treatment?–-untreated substance abusers’ accounts of their lifestyles and efforts to change
In this study a sample of non-abstinent untreated amphetamine users’ accounts of lifestyles, living conditions and efforts to change were described and analyzed. The objective was to inductively identify the qualitative characteristics of their potential distance to the treatment system. The analysis focused how self presentations and descriptions of reality were related to views on treatment and lifestyle change. Results showed that respondents …
Time to change – an exploratory study of motivation among untreated and treated substance abusers
This exploratory study examines whether the attitudes towards change and treatment of untreated non-abstinent substance abusers differ from those of patients undergoing treatment in residential care. The sample (n = 97) consists of untreated, voluntarily and compulsorily treated substance abusers who completed a questionnaire in 2003. Attitudes were measured with scales on e.g. problem recognition, desire for help, treatment readiness and aspects…
Aftercare and Compulsory Substance Abuse Treatment
In Sweden, the social services are responsible for administering help interventions to substance abusers after discharge from coercive care. The general aim of the present study is to analyze how a sample of social workers describe case-management related to compulsory treatment aftercare and how they construct and assign meaning to concepts such as coercive care, treatment goals and aftercare. Results show that aftercare is theoretically praised…
Alcohol abuse, compulsory treatment and successive aftercare
In Sweden, the social welfare boards have a statutory duty to provide aftercare for compulsorily treated substance abusers. However, there are no data on how the aftercare is organised and how clients perceive this phase of the compulsory treatment process. The aim of the study is to analyse how a sample of compulsorily treated alcohol abusers ( n = 12) characterise the current coercive treatment episode and evaluate previously experienced and fo…
The construction of maintenance treatment legitimacy
Opiate addict maintenance treatment (MT) has been controversial in Sweden. In 2004, however, a public authority conducted a review of MT research that paved the way for a relatively less restrictive policy. The present study examines how scientific evidence was constructed in the preparation of this policy shift. Written commentaries (by authorities, organisations etc) on a preliminary version of the review were analysed by use of discourse theor…
The limits of legitimacy
Background: It is widely acknowledged that the social meaning of maintenance treatment (MT) with methadone is context-dependent and that different discourses influence how this approach to opiate addiction problems is practised. In Sweden, MT has long been ideologically controversial, even if the past decade's emphasis on evidence-based interventions has made it more accepted and prevalent in the treatment system. MT may thus be seen as a discurs…
Danish heroin prescription in Swedish print media
Sweden's response to drug problems has long been governed by zero tolerance, as manifested by the motto ‘a drug-free society’ and the criminalisation of drug use. In this context, the legitimacy of methadone maintenance treatment and other interventions often depicted as harm reduction has been questioned. This highlights that solutions to drug problems are circumscribed by culture-specific ideologies and definitions of reality that are articulat…
Legitimacy through scaremongering
In Sweden, prohibitionist drug policy has contributed to making cannabis an illegal drug, viewed as dangerous, while alcohol is considered a legitimate recreational commodity. But the official Swedish cannabis discourse is now being contested on internet. In virtual environments an often employed way to try to legitimize cannabis use is by comparing it to alcohol. This indicates the importance of analyzing how substances are attributed with meani…
Protecting Prohibition
During recent years, political discussions about how to deal with cannabis use have become increasingly centered on harm reduction and liberalization in large parts of the Western world. In Sweden, however, no such re-framing of the issue has occurred. There has been political status quo with emphasis on prohibition and zero tolerance. This study aims to elucidate how the cannabis policy discourse in Sweden is characterized today to legitimize re…
Logics of Legitimation in Swedish Treatment for Youth Cannabis Use
Liberal views on cannabis use are widespread in many Western countries, but prohibitionism remains strong in Sweden. According to Swedish drug policy, comprehensive prevention and treatment interventions are necessary because young people are considered particularly vulnerable to cannabis-related harm. In this article, we examine how staff at Swedish outpatient treatment centers for young substance users (called “MiniMaria”) use different logics …
Getting Better”
The alcohol and other drug field is characterized by great diversity in kinds of treatment and treatment philosophies. Even the kinds of problems treatment is expected to address vary significantly, although agreement seems to exist that the general purpose is to help people “get better.” This article considers this diversity, drawing on a qualitative project conducted in three countries: Australia, Canada, and Sweden. Inspired by the project’s m…
Drugs, Brains and Other Subalterns
Over the last few decades feminists, science and technology studies scholars and others have grappled with how to take materiality into account in understanding social practices, subjectivity and events. One key area for these debates has been drug use and addiction. At the same time, neuroscientific accounts of drug use and addiction have also arisen. This development has attracted criticism as simplistically reinstating material determinism. In…
Making gender along the way
Analysis of alcohol policy suggests women are marked out for special attention while men and masculinities are often ignored. In this paper, we employ Carol Bacchi’s work on ‘gendering practices’ and John Law’s concept of ‘collateral realities’ to examine how gender is constituted in Australian alcohol policy. For Bacchi, policies actively produce what it is possible for ‘men’ and ‘women’ to become. For Law, realities are constituted through meth…
Obscuring Gendered Difference
Despite public debate about alcohol and public violence among young people in Australia, the issue of masculinities or gender is rarely visible in alcohol policy. Instead, policy recommendations aimed at reducing violence focus on changing the availability and consumption of alcohol. Drawing on concepts from feminist and science and technology studies scholarship, this article analyses how “alcohol-related violence” is constituted as a specific p…
Fixed and fluid at the same time
This article explores how professionals within Swedish addiction treatment (n = 18) describe and make sense of relapse prevention (RP). RP is known as a self-control programme for maintaining behavioural change, helping people deal with high-risk situations. However, since self-control techniques have been incorporated widely in the addiction treatment field, the specificities of RP have become vague. To grasp what RP ‘is’, we draw on John Law’s …
Multiple Logics
This study analyzes how staff in Swedish alcohol and other drug (AoD) treatment interpellate service users as people who can benefit from relapse prevention. Relapse prevention is a widely used intervention. Research is scarce, however, on how relapse prevention is practiced locally and how treatment staff perceive the relationship between AoD use as a problem and relapse prevention as a solution. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory and critical stud…
Displacements of gender
Alcohol-related violence', especially among young people participating in the night-time economy (NTE), has been the subject of intense public and policy debate in Australia. Previous sociological work has highlighted the relationship between men, masculinities and violence, but this relationship has received little attention in the research that tends to garner policy attention. In this article, we focus on the treatment of gender in Australian …
Comparisons in the making
Research shows that cannabis is understood differently across cannabis cultures. In Sweden, young cannabis users are seen as vulnerable, problem-burdened and increasingly embracing drug-liberal attitudes. Despite low prevalence rates, youth cannabis use is considered a high-profile problem that warrants prohibition. Previous studies show that staff in Swedish addiction treatment legitimize resolute interventions by making up young users as irrati…
Noticed and then Forgotten
In this article, we analyse interview data on how alcohol policy stakeholders in Australia, Canada and Sweden understand the relationship between men, masculinities, alcohol and violence. Using influential feminist scholarship on public policy and liberal political theory to analyse interviews with 42 alcohol policy stakeholders, we argue that while these stakeholders view men’s violence as a key issue for intervention, masculinities are backgrou…
A matter of craving–An archeology of relapse prevention in Swedish addiction treatment
This article concerns how craving is approached and handled, how it is ‘made up’, in the practice of so-called relapse prevention (RP) for addiction problems. There is a lack of research on what RP in general, and craving in particular, ‘is’ and can become across settings. Drawing upon science and technology studies (STS) and critical addiction research, we analyze how craving is enacted in manuals and training material related to the interventio…
Gendering practices in quantitative research on alcohol and violence
The hammer and the nail
The analytical, the political and the personal
For public health interventions to be effective, they need to be supported or at least accepted by those affected, and social policy should therefore be understood as political and strategic. This raises questions about the relationship between the analytical, the political and the personal in policy processes. This article offers an in-depth analysis of such issues, as they were enacted during interviews with Swedish alcohol policy stakeholders.…
Self-interpellation in narratives about craving
The concept of addiction seeks to explain why people act contrary to their own best interest. At the centre stage of addiction discourse is craving, conceptualised as a strong urge to use substances. This article analyses how talk therapies such as relapse prevention and self-help groups shape identity constructions and understandings of craving among clients. Drawing upon interviews with individuals who have engaged in talk therapies in Sweden, …
Stability and Change in Substance Use Among Swedish Adolescents
Background: Research is needed on how substance use patterns develop over time in the general adolescent population. This knowledge is crucial in calibrating prevention and other interventions. Method: The study concerns use of cigarettes, alcohol, and cannabis in a nationally representative cohort of Swedish adolescents (n = 3999). Two waves (9th and 11th school grade) from the Futura01 study were analyzed using latent transition analysis (LTA) …
Psychology (28 works) · Political science (24 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes (22 works) · Psychiatry (21 works) · Law (15 works) · Medicine (15 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Mental Health and Patient Involvement (13 works) · Psychological intervention (13 works)