Juliette Roddy

‘We don’t have no neighbourhood’: Advanced marginality and urban agriculture in Detroit

This paper is based on qualitative interviews (n=20) conducted with individuals working or residing within a heavily depopulated section of the city of Detroit. This area is the projected site of an urban agriculture (UA) project, which proposes to utilise vacant land and economically marginalised residents to produce marketable products and services. With a few exceptions, neighbourhood respondents had little hope of improvement occurring in the neighbourhood anytime soon, and few expectations for UA to alter the daily life or social dynamic of the area. These findings are framed and interpreted using Wacquant’s (1999) concept of advanced marginality and Sampson’s (2012) arguments concerning neighbourhood effects. While some neighbourhood improvement efforts were viewed positively, others were regarded with intense suspicion, indicating that idealistic UA efforts may have some work to do in terms of engaging residents and offsetting legacies of displacement as well as on-going marginalisation.

A hell of a life: addiction and marginality in post-industrial Detroit

Drawing on concepts from Foucault and Agamben, we maintain that the lives of daily heroin users provide a prime illustration of bare life in the zone of indistinction that is contemporary Detroit. First, we consider the case of Detroit as a stigmatized and racially segregated city, with concrete consequences for its residents. We then present evidence from in-depth ethnographic and economic interviews to illustrate the various spaces of confinement—that of addiction, that of economic marginality, and that of gender—occupied by these men and women, as well as the indeterminacy of their daily lives, captured through their descriptions of daily routines and interactions. We examine their expressions of worth as expressed in economic, emotional and moral terms. Finally, we draw connections between the sustained marginality of these individuals, as a contemporary category of homo sacer, and the policies and powers that both despise and depend upon them. Heroin, we contend, helps to fill and numb this social void, making bare life bearable, but also cementing ones marginality into semi-permanence.

“I Always Kept a Job”: Income Generation, Heroin Use and Economic Uncertainty in 21st Century Detroit

This qualitative study, based on a series of 30 in-depth interviews and 109 economic surveys conducted with active heroin users residing in and around Detroit, Michigan, describes reported patterns of heroin use and income generation activities. In spite of lack of access to regular, legal employment, we found that many participants displayed a dedication to regular daily routine and a sense of risk management or control. These findings are discussed relative to past research on heroin addiction as well as recent research on the changing nature of employment. We argue that this sample fits somewhere in between the controlled or working addict, and the “junkie” or “righteous dope fiend” of urban lore. We draw a connection between these stable patterns of addiction and income generation and the demands of informal and insecure labor markets. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for further research, interventions, and public policy.

Streets, strolls and spots: Sex work, drug use and social space in detroit

BACKGROUND In this paper, we explore social spaces related to street sex work and illicit drug use in Detroit. We consider these spaces as assemblages (Duff, 2011, 2013; Latour, 2005) that reflect the larger moral geography (Hubbard, 2012) of the city and fulfill specific functions in the daily lives of drug using sex workers. METHODS We draw on thirty-one in-depth qualitative interviews with former street sex workers who were recruited through a court-based treatment and recovery program, as well as ethnographic field notes from drug treatment and law enforcement settings. RESULTS Our interview findings reveal highly organized and routine activities that exist in a relatively stable, symbiotic relationship with law enforcement practices, employment and commuter patterns, and built environments. While the daily life of street sex work involves a good deal of individual agency in terms of moving between spaces and negotiating terms of exchange, daily trajectories were also circumscribed by economics, illicit substance use, and the objective risks of the street and the police. CONCLUSION We consider the implications of these results for future policy directed at harm reduction in the street setting.

Making Sense of the Transition From the Detroit Streets to Drug Treatment

In this article we consider the process of adjustment from active street sex work to life in structured substance abuse treatment among Detroit-area women who participated in a semicoercive program administered through a drug court. We examine this transition in terms of changes in daily routines and social networks, drawing on extensive qualitative data to illuminate the ways in which women defined their own situations. Using concepts from Bourdieu and Latour as analytical aids, we analyze the role of daily routines, environments, and networks in producing the shifts in identity that those who embraced the goals of recovery demonstrated. We conclude with a discussion of how the restrictive environments and redundant situations experienced by women in treatment could be paradoxically embraced as a means to achieve expanded opportunity and enhanced individual responsibility because women effectively reassembled their social networks and identities to align with the goals of recovery.

Heroin mismatch in the motor city: addiction, segregation, and the geography of opportunity

In this article, the authors used data from economic and ethnographic interviews with heroin users from Detroit, Michigan, as well as other sources, to illustrate the relationship between heroin users’ mobility patterns and urban and suburban environments, especially in terms of drug acquisition and the geography of opportunity. The authors found that although geographic location and social networks associated with segregation provided central city residents and African Americans with a strategic advantage over White suburbanites in locating and purchasing heroin easily and efficiently, this same segregation effectively focuses the negative externalities of heroin markets in central city neighborhoods. Finally, the authors consider how the heroin trade reflects and reproduces the segregated post-industrial landscape and discuss directions for future research about the relationship between ethnic and economic ghettos and regional drug markets.

Cost analysis of long-term outcomes of an urban mental health court

Multiple studies have demonstrated decreased recidivism and increased treatment engagement for individuals with serious mental illness involved in Mental Health Courts (MHC). However, the limited availability of social and fiscal resources requires an analysis of the relationship between a programs effectiveness and its costs. Outcome costs associated with a sample of 105 participants discharged for more than 1 year - and grouped by completion status - were compared to an eligible sample not enrolled (n=45). Transactional costs analysis (TCA) was used to calculate outcomes associated with treatment, arrest, and confinement in the 12-month post-MHC. Total outcome costs for the Successful Group (

Ghosts, Devils, and the Undead City: Detroit and the Narrative of Monstrosity

16,964) significantly differed from the Unsuccessful (

Paintings, Pensions, and Pain

32,258) and Compare Groups (

Weeds, Pheasants and Wild Dogs: Resituating the Ecological Paradigm in Postindustrial Detroit: WEEDS, PHEASANTS AND WILD DOGS

39,870). Costs associated with the higher number of arrests for those in the Compare Group created the largest differences. Total cost savings between Successful and Compare (M=