ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book examines the empirical and political debates that have informed knowledge of injecting drug use. By historicising Harm Reduction, it addresses the differences between social scientific approaches, made explicit different methodological and epistemological perspectives and challenged the dualisms of social scientific paradigms. Situating the syringe in different cultural, institutional and social contexts, the book tries to intervene in debates on knowledge production. It also investigates and demonstrates the ways drug users adapt the objects of injecting drug use to their environment. Despite the aims of social scientific research to create certainty about the causes and effects of injecting drug use and provide a guide for the prevention of injecting drug harms, the book shows how the intervention of Harm Reduction has involved a series of paradigm wars.
