J Proudfoot
Biographic Data
| ID | 55638 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Proudfoot |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Proudfoot |
| SIGNATURE | PROUDFOOT J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Durham University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5828-2341 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 79 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1947 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Dreamwork of the Symptom
A key tenet of critical health research is that individual symptoms must be considered in light of the social and political contexts that shape or, in some cases, produce them. Precisely how oppressive social forces give rise to individual symptoms, however, remains challenging to theorize. This article contributes to debates over the interpretation of symptoms through a close reading of the case of Leon, an African American man struggling with a…
Isolation, Solitude and Social Distancing for People Who Use Drugs
COVID-19 has resulted in deepened states of crisis and vulnerability for people who use drugs throughout Europe and across the world, with social distancing measures having far-reaching implications for everyday life. Prolonged periods of isolation and solitude are acknowledged within much addiction literature as negatively impacting the experiences of those in recovery, while also causing harm to active users - many of whom depend on social cont…
The psychic life of gentrification
Following the lead of artists and scholars in Black, feminist, psychoanalytic, and queer studies and geographies, this special issue and editorial call for greater scholarly attention to the conscious and unconscious emotional, psychic, and affective dimensions of urban gentrification. While geographical scholarship frequently gestures to gentrification as an affective scene, these connections are generally suggested rather than developed. We arg…
What is a Psychological Task? The Operational Pliability of “Task” in Psychological Laboratory Experimentation
There has been no sustained sociological analysis of a near ubiquitous feature of psychological laboratory experimentation: the task. Yet the task is central in arranging the means by which phenomena are isolated and brought into the experimental scientist’s purview. As scientific objects, states such as mind wandering and daydreaming have been made visible in experiments that draw on a (sometimes) sharp distinction between what it means to be ei…
The stakes of situated knowledges
This commentary explores the politics of Dragos Simandan’s (2019) proposal to expand the concept of situated knowledge beyond social difference. I argue that while an expanded conception of situated knowledges is welcome, Simandan’s focus on de-politicized instances of situated knowledge ends up blunting the theory’s critical edge. Any attempt to expand situated knowledge beyond social difference must ensure that we do not lose sight of the ways …
Traumatic landscapes
The confluence of the contemporary opioid crisis and the Great Recession has renewed interest in theories of addiction that can account for the relationship between individual symptoms and large-scale socio-political forces. Gesler's (1992) theory of 'therapeutic landscapes' examines the ways that social, political, and cultural forces, embedded in place, contribute to health and wellbeing. This article considers the inverse of the therapeutic la…
The libidinal economy of revanchism
Harm reduction is generally presented as the compassionate, pragmatic alternative to prohibitionist drug policy. This article examines harm reduction in relation to debates over the revanchist city in urban geography, arguing that it should be understood as an ambivalent social policy. I advance a psychoanalytic conceptualization of ambivalence to explain the often contradictory character of contemporary drug policy, including harm reduction. Cal…
Drugs, addiction, and the social bond
This article contributes towards the project of critically theorizing drug addiction by drawing on insights from psychoanalysis, anthropology, and geography. I argue that social bonds-that is, people's relationships to other people and to society-are central to the phenomenon of drug addiction, and I present three accounts of drug addiction and the social bond. The first is the classical psychoanalytic account of addiction, which holds that drug …
Anxiety and phantasy in the field
This article contributes to the geographical literature on reflexivity by asking what it means to take the researcher's unconscious seriously in ethnographic research, and proposes psychoanalysis as a theoretical and methodological resource for researching the unconscious dimensions of fieldwork. I begin by describing three moments from my fieldwork with panhandlers and drug users that evince the operation of the unconscious. I then review psycho…
At Street Level
Bureaucratic regulation shapes cities in important ways. Yet certain aspects of how state regulation operates in urban neighborhoods have been understudied in geography and cognate disciplines. This article focuses on one understudied group of state actors: property use, health, and liquor inspectors, part of a wider group of "street-level bureaucrats" who, through their face-to-face contact with the public, affect how and where regulatory enforc…
New City Patterns
At Street Level
Bureaucratic regulation shapes cities in important ways. Yet certain aspects of how state regulation operates in urban neighborhoods have been understudied in geography and cognate disciplines. This article focuses on one understudied group of state actors: property use, health, and liquor inspectors, part of a wider group of "street-level bureaucrats" who, through their face-to-face contact with the public, affect how and where regulatory enforc…
Anxiety and phantasy in the field
This article contributes to the geographical literature on reflexivity by asking what it means to take the researcher's unconscious seriously in ethnographic research, and proposes psychoanalysis as a theoretical and methodological resource for researching the unconscious dimensions of fieldwork. I begin by describing three moments from my fieldwork with panhandlers and drug users that evince the operation of the unconscious. I then review psycho…
The libidinal economy of revanchism
Harm reduction is generally presented as the compassionate, pragmatic alternative to prohibitionist drug policy. This article examines harm reduction in relation to debates over the revanchist city in urban geography, arguing that it should be understood as an ambivalent social policy. I advance a psychoanalytic conceptualization of ambivalence to explain the often contradictory character of contemporary drug policy, including harm reduction. Cal…
Traumatic landscapes
The confluence of the contemporary opioid crisis and the Great Recession has renewed interest in theories of addiction that can account for the relationship between individual symptoms and large-scale socio-political forces. Gesler's (1992) theory of 'therapeutic landscapes' examines the ways that social, political, and cultural forces, embedded in place, contribute to health and wellbeing. This article considers the inverse of the therapeutic la…
The psychic life of gentrification
Following the lead of artists and scholars in Black, feminist, psychoanalytic, and queer studies and geographies, this special issue and editorial call for greater scholarly attention to the conscious and unconscious emotional, psychic, and affective dimensions of urban gentrification. While geographical scholarship frequently gestures to gentrification as an affective scene, these connections are generally suggested rather than developed. We arg…
The stakes of situated knowledges
This commentary explores the politics of Dragos Simandan’s (2019) proposal to expand the concept of situated knowledge beyond social difference. I argue that while an expanded conception of situated knowledges is welcome, Simandan’s focus on de-politicized instances of situated knowledge ends up blunting the theory’s critical edge. Any attempt to expand situated knowledge beyond social difference must ensure that we do not lose sight of the ways …
Drugs, addiction, and the social bond
This article contributes towards the project of critically theorizing drug addiction by drawing on insights from psychoanalysis, anthropology, and geography. I argue that social bonds-that is, people's relationships to other people and to society-are central to the phenomenon of drug addiction, and I present three accounts of drug addiction and the social bond. The first is the classical psychoanalytic account of addiction, which holds that drug …
New City Patterns
New City Patterns
At Street Level
Bureaucratic regulation shapes cities in important ways. Yet certain aspects of how state regulation operates in urban neighborhoods have been understudied in geography and cognate disciplines. This article focuses on one understudied group of state actors: property use, health, and liquor inspectors, part of a wider group of "street-level bureaucrats" who, through their face-to-face contact with the public, affect how and where regulatory enforc…
Anxiety and phantasy in the field
This article contributes to the geographical literature on reflexivity by asking what it means to take the researcher's unconscious seriously in ethnographic research, and proposes psychoanalysis as a theoretical and methodological resource for researching the unconscious dimensions of fieldwork. I begin by describing three moments from my fieldwork with panhandlers and drug users that evince the operation of the unconscious. I then review psycho…
The libidinal economy of revanchism
Harm reduction is generally presented as the compassionate, pragmatic alternative to prohibitionist drug policy. This article examines harm reduction in relation to debates over the revanchist city in urban geography, arguing that it should be understood as an ambivalent social policy. I advance a psychoanalytic conceptualization of ambivalence to explain the often contradictory character of contemporary drug policy, including harm reduction. Cal…
Drugs, addiction, and the social bond
This article contributes towards the project of critically theorizing drug addiction by drawing on insights from psychoanalysis, anthropology, and geography. I argue that social bonds-that is, people's relationships to other people and to society-are central to the phenomenon of drug addiction, and I present three accounts of drug addiction and the social bond. The first is the classical psychoanalytic account of addiction, which holds that drug …
What is a Psychological Task? The Operational Pliability of “Task” in Psychological Laboratory Experimentation
There has been no sustained sociological analysis of a near ubiquitous feature of psychological laboratory experimentation: the task. Yet the task is central in arranging the means by which phenomena are isolated and brought into the experimental scientist’s purview. As scientific objects, states such as mind wandering and daydreaming have been made visible in experiments that draw on a (sometimes) sharp distinction between what it means to be ei…
The stakes of situated knowledges
This commentary explores the politics of Dragos Simandan’s (2019) proposal to expand the concept of situated knowledge beyond social difference. I argue that while an expanded conception of situated knowledges is welcome, Simandan’s focus on de-politicized instances of situated knowledge ends up blunting the theory’s critical edge. Any attempt to expand situated knowledge beyond social difference must ensure that we do not lose sight of the ways …
Traumatic landscapes
The confluence of the contemporary opioid crisis and the Great Recession has renewed interest in theories of addiction that can account for the relationship between individual symptoms and large-scale socio-political forces. Gesler's (1992) theory of 'therapeutic landscapes' examines the ways that social, political, and cultural forces, embedded in place, contribute to health and wellbeing. This article considers the inverse of the therapeutic la…
Isolation, Solitude and Social Distancing for People Who Use Drugs
COVID-19 has resulted in deepened states of crisis and vulnerability for people who use drugs throughout Europe and across the world, with social distancing measures having far-reaching implications for everyday life. Prolonged periods of isolation and solitude are acknowledged within much addiction literature as negatively impacting the experiences of those in recovery, while also causing harm to active users - many of whom depend on social cont…
The psychic life of gentrification
Following the lead of artists and scholars in Black, feminist, psychoanalytic, and queer studies and geographies, this special issue and editorial call for greater scholarly attention to the conscious and unconscious emotional, psychic, and affective dimensions of urban gentrification. While geographical scholarship frequently gestures to gentrification as an affective scene, these connections are generally suggested rather than developed. We arg…
The Dreamwork of the Symptom
A key tenet of critical health research is that individual symptoms must be considered in light of the social and political contexts that shape or, in some cases, produce them. Precisely how oppressive social forces give rise to individual symptoms, however, remains challenging to theorize. This article contributes to debates over the interpretation of symptoms through a close reading of the case of Leon, an African American man struggling with a…
Sociology (9 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Anthropology (4 works) · Ethnography (4 works) · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk (4 works)