"Recovery is for those who obey" Some methodological articulations and adjustments, for analyzing a drug addiction treatment

Abstract

The article reflects about the theoretical and methodological adjustment of using the 'total institution', 'dispositive' and 'discipline' categories, for investigating recent problems on health-sickness-attention field, especially those called 'drug addiction'.
By the hand of many empirical researches, some concepts were analytically tied, with the result of the association between discipline and confinement, and between total institution and enclosed space.
The article proposal is to uncouple these notions, to recover its analytical productivity, by investigating an outpatient treatment dispositive for drug addiction, located in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires.
This problems are tackled from an ethnographic perspective, with documentary analysis, participant observation, and interviews to the institution' health professionals, supporting staff and drug users.
The results include that Goffman's and Foucault's concepts help to understand the existence of drug addiction treatment' forms that are not isolation-centered (as a fundamental body control' technique), but sustain a significant closure and deprivation process. It also includes that renouncing to make equivalent the closure and enclosed space, to a materiality, highlight the subjective deprivation experience for those who were in treatment.