ABSTRACT
In a special issue of the journal Addictions academics, researchers and health care professionals debated the status of social scientific knowledge on injecting drug use. The qualitative turn in drugs research has involved a move away from traditional epidemiological approaches and the pursuit of ethnographic methods of inquiry. Addressing this academic debate on knowledge production in the drugs field, this chapter investigates how and why methods matter. The chapter addresses the significance of the syringe as a methodological device in research on Harm Reduction. Drawing on Bruno Latour's non-human centred line of inquiry and the work of C. Wright Mills on the sociological imagination, the chapter offers insights for generating empirical objects in the social sciences. Neil McKeganey's comments in the journal Addiction sparked a heated debate on the value of social research methods in the drugs field. At first glance Philippe Bourgois' cross-methodological approach appears to bridge the gap between matters of fact and matters of concern.
