David:  The tendency for cultural anthropology to view alcohol as a normal
and interesting functional part of a cultural system and for public health
to view it, instead, as a foreign and pernicious agent is a longstanding
strain in social science perspectives on alcohol.  The memorable place in
the literature where the public health (problem maximizers) perspective
duked it out with the anthropological (problem minimizers) perspective was
an exchange between Robin R. and Dwight Heath:

1.  Room, R., "Alcohol and Ethnography: A Case of Problem Deflation,"
Current Anthropology 25:169-178, 1984 -- which is available at
http://www.bks.no/room.htm.

2.  Heath, D B  1984 Reply to Room. Current Anthropology 25(2):180-181.

Robin made frequent reference to Heath's work in his paper.

Ron


-----Original Message-----
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of David Fahey
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 9:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: what can alcohol/drug historians learn from the social
sciences?

Dan's point about gambling research reminds me that most of us--social
scientists and others--study drinking, drugs, or whatever as a
social/medical/legal PROBLEM.  For certain disciplines--maybe anthropology
is an appropriate example--drinking, drugs, or whatever may be studied as
part of NORMAL life and not as a problem.  Some scholars, for instance,
study alcoholic drink as part of  historical research on food or of leisure
behavior or of social ritual or of business enterprise.

David Fahey

At 09:30 AM 3/29/2005, you wrote:
>Not that I can answer for social sciences, but I convened a group here at
>Brock of "addiction" scholars--a couple psychologists, a sociologist,
>and  few others--and have found this tremendously useful for my own work
>and perspectives. Especially in the area of different conceptions of
>addiction, and also in research methodology.  Also, about half of these
>scholars research gambling, so the issues we deal with converge and diverge
>in very interesting and useful ways.
>
>Dan Malleck
>
>At 06:59 PM 3/28/2005, you wrote:
>>I benefited greatly from the responses to my last question, so I feel
>>emboldened to ask a broader and more controversial question:  what can
>>alcohol/drug historians learn from the social sciences?  The old, sad
>>joke is that historians are a generation or two out of date in their
>>borrowings from the social sciences.  What do ADHS social scientists
>>think?  What would they recommend historians read?
>
>Dan Malleck, PhD
>Assistant Professor, Community Health Sciences
>Brock University
>500 Glenridge Ave
>St. Catharines, Ontario
>L2S 3A1
>905 688-5550 ext 5108