Harm reduction: a central concern for medical anthropology

Abstract

The topic of harm reduction is positioned within a larger thematic area in anthropology: the anthropology of vulnerability, risk, and responsibility. This thematic area encompasses the study of lay perceptions of vulnerability, the production of knowledge about risk, lay response to risk information, the politics of responsibility, and practices under taken to minimize risk in the present and the future. Harm reduction is an expression of agency as well as a form of manipulation in a political economic environment where the harm reduction industr y is poised to profit from broadening horizons of risk, collective anxieties, and peoples’ need to feel in control.